HE  Mo  JNT 


FHlLip  GlLBERJ  H/\|VIERJOH. 
• 


THE    MOUNT 

AND 

AUTUN 


THE    MOUNT 

NARRATIVE   OF 

A   VISIT  TO  THE  SITE  OF   A   GAULISH   CITY 
ON  MONT  BEUVRAY 


WITH   A   DESCRIPTION   OF  THE   NEIGHBORING 
CITY   OF 

AUTUN 


BY 

PHILIP  GILBERT   HAMERTON 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE,"  "A  PAINTER'S  CAMP," 

"ROUND  MY  HOUSE,"  " WENDERHOLME,"  "A  SUMMER 

VOYAGE  ON  THE  RIVER  SAONE,"  ETC. 


BOSTON 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS 
1897 


Copyright,  1897, 
BY  ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


STACK 
ANNEX 


fol 


H3 


CONTENTS. 


THE   MOUNT. 
CHAPTER   I. 

PAGB 

MOUNT  BEUVRAY  —  DEJEUNER  WITH  A  LEARNED 
ANTIQUARY  —  His  HOUSE  —  His  LOVE  OF  THE 
PAST  AND  DISLIKE  OF  NEWSPAPERS  —  WE  TRAVEL 
TOGETHER  TO  THE  MOUNT  —  THE  VILLAGE  OF 
MONTHELON  —  STORY  OF  A  SAINT  —  THE  CHA- 
TEAU WHERE  SHE  LIVED  —  THE  CHURCH  OF 
MONTHELON  —  ROMANESQUE  COUNTRY  CHURCHES 

—  ANECDOTES    OF    A    PRIEST  —  FISHPOND    MADE 
USELESS   BY  THE  INVASION  OF  A  PLANT — TOWER 
OF  VAUTHEAU  —  AN   ANTIQUARY'S    FANCY  —  THE 
FOUNTAIN  OF  THE  WIVRE  —  A  LEGEND   ....      i 

CHAPTER   II. 

ST.  LfiGER-sous-BEUVRAY  —  A  LAKE  AND  PICTUR- 
ESQUE SCENERY  —  ANCIENT  CHESTNUTS  —  WOLVES 
AND  HYDROPHOBIA  —  DREADFUL  HAVOC  COMMIT- 
TED BY  A  MAD  WOLF  —  A  HUNT  ESTABLISHED 
BY  EPISCOPAL  AUTHORITY  —  BEAUTIFUL  SCENERY 

—  THE  MOUNT  SEEN   NEAR  —  OLD   HOUSES  AND 
NEW  ROADS  —  ANALYSIS  OF  ARTISTIC  QUALITIES 
IN  AN  OLD   BUILDING  —  COCOTTE   TRANSFORMED 


vi  Contents. 

PACK 

INTO  A  SADDLE-HORSE  —  THE  AUTHOR  REACHES 
THE  SUMMIT  OF  THE  MOUNT  AND  ORDERS  DIN- 
NER—  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  ANTIQUARY'S  MOUN- 
TAIN ESTABLISHMENT  —  His  SERVANT  PAUCHARD 

—  A  FOUNTAIN  AND  A  WINE  CELLAR 25 

CHAPTER   III. 

A  REASON  FOR  THE  ANTIQUARY'S  SOJOURNS  ON  THE 
MOUNT  —  ANCIENT  FORTIFICATIONS  —  THE  MOUNT 

FORMERLY    THE     SlTE    OF   A    STRONG    HlLL    ClTY  — 

ANTIQUARIAN  DIGGINGS  —  OUR  MANNER  OF  LIVING 
ON  THE  MOUNT  —  THE  CHIMNEY  —  INSCRIPTIONS 

—  TAPESTRY — A  SERENADE  TO  THE  ANTIQUARY 

—  THE  AUTHOR'S  FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  MOUNT     .    41 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OUR  CUSTOM  OF  TAKING  A  WALK  AT  MIDNIGHT  — 
THE  PLATEAU  OF  THE  BEUVRAY  —  THE  ANTI- 
QUARY BUILDS  AN  ORATORY  —  THE  MAY  FAIR 
ON  THE  BEUVRAY  —  TOURNAMENTS  HELD  THERE  — 
TRADITIONS  OF  ROMAN  WARFARE  AMONGST  THE 
PEASANTRY  —  PHANTOM  OF  A  WHITE  HORSE  — 
THE  PHANTOM  HUNTER  AND  HOUNDS  —  MONAS- 
TERY ON  THE  BEUVRAY  —  OUR  HABITS  ON  THE 
MOUNT  —  MONT  BLANC  SEEN  AT  SUNRISE,  157 
MILES  OFF  —  VIEWS  FROM  MOUNTAINS  AT  SUN- 
RISE  51 

CHAPTER  V. 

OUR  FIRST  BREAKFAST  —  PAUCHARD'S  SOUP — PEDES- 
TRIAN POWERS  OF  THE  ANTIQUARY  —  EXPLORA- 


Contents.  vii 

PAGE 

TION  OF  THE  MOUNT  —  THE  GAULISH  RAMPARTS  — 
INTERIOR  EARTHWORKS  —  STRUCTURE  OF  A  GAUL- 
ISH WALL,  AS  DESCRIBED  BY  CESAR,  CONFIRMED 
BY  OUR  OBSERVATIONS  —  GAULISH  BLACKSMITH'S 
SHOP  —  GAULISH  ENAMELLER  —  SURPRISING  QUAN- 
TITY OF  AMPHORA  —  ARRANGEMENT  OF  HOUSES  — 
LARGE  MANSION  —  NAME  OF  THE  ANCIENT  CITY 

—  MOST  PROBABLY  BlBRACTE  —  REMARKABLE  DE- 
FICIENCY OF   CESAR'S  AS  A  MILITARY  NARRATOR 

—  POVERTY  OF  DESCRIPTION  IN  HIS  WRITINGS  .    .    64 

CHAPTER  VI. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL  INTEREST  OF   A  RAILWAY-CUTTING 

—  THE    LATE   ARCHBISHOP    OF    RHEIMS  —  NAPO- 
LEON III.  —  His  SUBSIDY  FOR   THE  EXCAVATIONS 
ON  THE  MOUNT — LOCAL  SPITE  AND  ANIMOSITY  — 
BAD  FAITH  AND  INTENSE  PREJUDICE  —  THE  GREAT 
WATER  ARGUMENT  —  ABUNDANCE  OF  WATER  ON    ' 
THE  BEUVRAY  —  LETTERS  AGAINST  THE  ANTIQUARY 
ADDRESSED  TO  GREAT  PERSONAGES  —  PRINCE  BlS- 
MARCK  —  THE  INFLICTION  OF  TOURISTS  —  ASTON- 
ISHING INDISCRETION  OF  FASHIONABLE  TOURISTS 

—  CONDUCT  OF  A  PARTY  OF  NOBILITY  —  MISBE- 
HAVIOR   OF   TWO   TITLED    LADIES  —  THE    COUNT 

OF  PARIS 80 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  ANTIQUARY'S  HOSPITALITY  —  PLEASANT  SOCIETY 
ON  THE  MOUNT  —  AN  ESCAPED  HOSTAGE — SELF- 
DEVOTION  OF  TWO  YOUNG  PRIESTS  —  DISCOVERY 
OF  A  GAULISH  FIREPLACE  —  WE  LIGHT  A  FIRE 
THEREON  —  EVENTS  THAT  HAD  PASSED  BETWEEN 
TWO  LIGHTINGS  OF  THE  FIRE  —  THE  ANTIQUARY 


viii  Contents. 

PAGB 

DELIVERS  AN  ELOQUENT  LECTURE  AND  SINGS  OLD 
BALLADS  —  THE  AUTHOR  TRANSLATES  POETRY  — 
DELIGHTFUL  EVENING  —  PAUCHARD'S  BEAUTIFUL 
LEGEND  OF  THE  NIGHTINGALE  —  "LA  PIERRE  DE 
LAWIVRE"  —  ITS  LEGEND 96 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

OUR  PEDESTRIANISM  —  A  HAMLET  NEAR  THE  MOUNT 

—  AUTHOR  TAKEN  FOR  A  PRUSSIAN   SPY  —  ART 
GENERALLY  SUPPOSED  TO  BE  AN  ABSURD  BUSINESS 

—  BEAUTY    OF   THE    OLD    HAMLET  —  LA    ROCHE 
MILLAY — THE  CHATEAU  AND  GARDEN  THERE  — 
A  NIGHT  ADVENTURE  —  ANOTHER   RETURN  FROM 
THE    MOUNT  —  WANDERINGS    IN    SEARCH   OF   AN 
OLD  PAIR  OF  FIRE-DOGS  —  THE  CHATEAU  DU  JEU 

—  ITS    GARDEN    AND    AVENUE  —  CHATEAU  OF  A 
SMALL  SQUIRE  —  MANNER  OF  LIFE  OF  THE  SMALL 
SQUIRES  IN  FORMER  TIMES  —  WE  SUP  AND  SLEEP 
IN  AN  UNINHABITED  HOUSE  —  THE  PIED-A-TERRE 

—  BENEFICIAL  ACTIVITY  —  WILD  BOARS  AND  OTHER 
ANIMALS  ON  THE  BEUVRAY  ...  .    ,     .    .  112 


AUTUN. 

I.    INTRODUCTION 143 

II.    THE  CATHEDRAL 157 

III.  THE    LAPIDARY   MUSEUM   AND    THE    ROMAN 

GATES 185 

IV.  HOUSES 199 


THE    MOUNT. 


CHAPTER   I. 

MOUNT  BEUVRAY  —  DEJEUNER  WITH  A  LEARNED  ANTI- 
QUARY—  His  HOUSE  — His  LOVE  OF  THE  PAST  AND 
DISLIKE  OF  NEWSPAPERS  —  WE  TRAVEL  TOGETHER 
TO  THE  MOUNT  —  THE  VILLAGE  OF  MONTHELON  — 
STORY  OF  A  SAINT  —  THE  CHATEAU  WHERE  SHE 
LIVED  —  THE  CHURCH  OF  MONTHELON  —  ROMANESQUE 
COUNTRY  CHURCHES  —  ANECDOTES  OF  A  PRIEST  — 
FISHPOND  MADE  USELESS  BY  THE  INVASION  OF  A 
PLANT  —  TOWER  OF  VAUTHEAU  —  AN  ANTIQUARY'S 
FANCY  —  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  THE  WIVRE  —  A  LEGEND. 

the  western  side  of  the  valley  or  basin 
of  Autun,  rises  a  massive  hill,  about 
i, 800  feet  above  the  level  of  the  plain,  and 
2,700  above  the  sea-level.  It  plays  a  great 
part  in  all  effects  of  sunset,  being  remote 
enough  to  take  fine  blue  or  purple  color  in 
certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere.  The 
distance  from  my  house  is  about  ten  miles  as 
the  crow  flies,  or  it  is  twenty  miles  by  road, 
so  that  the  hill  may  be  reached  in  a  drive,  and 


2  The  Mount. 

I  go  there  from  time  to  time,  yet  not  so  fre- 
quently as  a  certain  friend  of  mine,  who  has 
reasons  of  his  own  for  taking  an  especial 
interest  in  Mount  Beuvray. 

The  best  way  to  initiate  the  reader  into 
the  peculiar  charms  and  characteristics  of  the 
Mount,  is  to  take  him  with  me,  if  he  will 
kindly  pardon  the  liberty,  and  let  the  place 
come  upon  him  gradually,  as  it  would  upon 
an  actual  traveller.  He  shall,  however,  in 
addition,  possess  certain  advantages  which  are 
only  shared  by  very  few  and  highly-favored 
pilgrims  of  the  Mount. 

Before  we  start,  I  will  just  whet  the  reader's 
appetite  with  the  remark,  which  he  will  find 
fully  justified  before  we  have  done,  that  Mount 
Beuvray  is,  much  more  than  any  other  hill  or 
mountain  that  I  have  either  visited  or  read 
about,  a  place  of  peculiar  characteristics.  It 
has  not  the  grandeur  of  my  old  friend,  Ben 
Cruachan,  and,  as  for  height,  its  whole  eleva- 
tion is  but  the  difference  between  Mont  Blanc 
and  the  Aiguille  Verte;  yet  the  impression 
that  Ben  Cruachan  leaves  is  essentially  what 
you  will  receive  after  climbing  several  other 
Highland  mountains,  and  the  exploration  of 
glaciers  on  Mont  Blanc  has  just  the  same 


The  Mount.  3 

kind  of  interest  as  the  exploration  of  glaciers 
in  other  regions  of  the  Alps.  But  every  one 
who  knows  the  Beuvray  remembers  it  as  we 
remember  some  very  original  being,  for  there 
are  not  two  Beuvrays,  either  in  France  or 
elsewhere. 

There  lives  at  Autun  a  friend  of  mine,  who 
shall  be  called  in  these  pages  the  Antiquary ; 
and  sometimes  we  arrange  to  go  to  the 
Beuvray  together.  Let  me  take  one  of  these 
excursions  as  an  example  of  the  rest. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  the  French 
are  an  inhospitable  nation,  but  if  this  is  a  rule 
it  is  a  rule  with  a  good  many  very  striking 
exceptions,  and  the  Antiquary  is  one  of  them. 
It  is  settled  that  I  am  to  go  and  fetch  him  for 
a  drive  to  the  Beuvray,  and  take  my  four- 
wheeled  dog-cart,  because  he  has  some  impedi- 
menta of  awkward  shape  and  size  which  he  is 
anxious  to  transport  to  the  Mount.  These 
turn  out  to  be  a  deal  table  about  seven  feet 
long,  with  trestles,  and  a  few  little  personal  ef- 
fects. As  for  me,  I  too  have  things  to  carry  — 
namely,  a  knapsack  and  general  artistic  equip- 
ment for  the  purpose  of  studying  from  nature. 
We  intend  to  stay  nearly  a  week  on  the 
Mount,  so  I  burden  myself  in  addition  with  a 


4  The  Mount. 

small  sack  of  corn  and  several  trusses  of  hay. 
The  deal  table  with  the  trestles,  the  trusses  of 
hay,  and  my  saddle  are  arranged  and  corded 
behind  the  dog-cart,  giving  it  anything  but  an 
elegant  appearance  ;  indeed  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  an  English  gentleman  would  have 
courage  to  drive  through  an  English  town  on 
a  vehicle  loaded  in  that  manner,  but  as  we 
two  are  people  who  have  our  own  purposes  in 
view,  and  regard  public  opinion  with  the  most 
contemptuous  indifference,  we  do  not  trouble 
our  minds  with  reflections  about  what  the 
French  Mrs.  Grundy  may  say.  The  Anti- 
quary's town  residence,  where  I  go  to  fetch 
him,  is  one  of  the  best  in  the  little  city.  You 
enter  the  garden  under  the  shadow  of  a  great 
porte-coctiere  with  oak  doors  large  enough  to 
admit  a  wain  of  hay,  and  the  porter's  lodge  in 
the  sides  of  the  structure  and  above  it.  Once 
inside,  you  find  yourself  in  a  garden  over- 
shadowed by  magnificent  trees,  most  notably 
by  one  gigantic  acacia,  certainly  the  finest  I 
ever  beheld.  My  little  mare,  whose  name  is 
Cocotte,  is  unharnessed  and  led  to  the  stable 
through  a  building  which  is  quite  a  museum, 
being  full  of  massive  remnants  of  antiquity, 
such  as  capitals  of  columns,  big  stones  with 


The  Mount.  5 

inscriptions,  old  fireplaces,  and  niches,  and 
other  objects  of  embarrassing  dimensions  that 
antiquaries  love  to  collect,  and  don't  know 
where  to  put  when  they  have  collected  them. 
Cocotte  passes  through  the  museum  alike 
without  damaging  anything  or  observing  any- 
thing, and  arrives  at  last  at  a  certain  stall  in 
the  stable,  already  perfectly  well  known  to  her. 
The  coach-house,  too,  is  crammed  with  anti- 
quities, for  the  Antiquary  does  not  keep  a  car- 
riage, partly  because  it  would  turn  out  his  big 
stones,  the  ugliest  of  which  is  lovelier  in  his 
eyes  than  the  most  elegant  of  Parisian 
vehicles. 

The  Antiquary  has  a  large  state  dining- 
room  adorned  with  old  carved  oak  and  a 
choice  collection  of  old  French  and  Italian 
ware,  but  he  has  also  a  smaller  dining-room, 
for  ordinary  occasions,  furnished  in  the  sim- 
ple way  that  the  French  people  like  for  a 
"  room  to  eat  in."  Here  we  have  a  little 
dejeuner  as  a  preparation  for  the  labors  of 
the  day.  It  is  now  ten  o'clock ;  we  have  been 
both  hard  at  work  since  six,  and  are  ready  to 
do  honor  to  our  repast. 

A  Frenchman  always  seems  gayer  and 
brighter  at  dejeuner  than  at  dinner-time,  and 


6  The  Mount. 

he  is  never  so  hospitable  as  at  a  dejeuner  with- 
out ceremony.  Ours  passes  as  pleasantly  as 
can  be  ;  we  talk  of  the  journey  before  us,  settle 
the  detail  of  our  little  arrangements,  and  per- 
haps enjoy  the  good  cookery  and  perfect  ser- 
vice all  the  better  from  the  knowledge  that 
we  have  a  rougher  existence  before  us,  and- 
are  bidding  a  temporary  farewell  to  these  re- 
finements of  an  elaborate  civilization. 

My  host  is  one  of  those  few  and  enviable 
people  who  have  managed,  in  their  own  pecu- 
liar way,  to  lead  the  ideal  life.  It  may  not  be 
exactly  your  ideal,  reader ;  it  is  not  exactly 
mine ;  for  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  every  truly 
ideal  life  that  it  is  strongly  individual,  and  not 
fashioned  on  a  model  that  would  precisely  fit 
anybody  else.  My  host  lives  in  the  past ;  in 
him  the  historical  and  antiquarian  sense  pre- 
dominates over  the  feeling  that  goes  with  the 
current  of  the  world's  diurnal  existence.  I 
have  often  seen  him  read  old  books,  but  never 
a  newspaper,  and  once  I  asked  him  whether 
he  ever  did  read  such  a  thing  as  a  newspaper, 
when  he  answered  "  No,"  with  the  greatest 
decision.  History  is  his  delight,  politics  his 
abhorrence.  He  does  not  see  that  the  news- 
paper, amongst  its  tiresome  discussions  of 


The  Mount.  7 

small  matters  that  will  be  forgotten  in  a  few 
weeks  or  months,  does  really  at  the  same  time 
contain  the  history  of  the  current  year,  so  that 
if  the  historical  sense  embraced  the  present  as 
well  as  the  past,  it  would  read  The  Times  as  well 
as  Tacitus.  Forgetting  one  day  that  my  friend 
never  opened  a  newspaper,  I  happened  to 
make  an  allusion  to  the  siege  of  Carthagena, 
when  he  told  me  that  he  was  not  aware  that 
Carthagena  had  been  besieged  at  all,  or  spe- 
cially occupied  by  the  Spanish  communards, 
and  he  did  not  seem  grateful  for  the  informa- 
tion, but,  if  anything,  slightly  put  out  by  hav- 
ing to  hear  what  had  been  read  by  another 
person  in  a  newspaper.  Some  contemporary 
events  do,  however,  reach  him  by  their  very 
loudness.  If  a  powder-magazine  exploded  in 
the  next  street,  he  would  probably  become 
aware  of  the  circumstance  in  the  privacy  of 
his  own  study,  and  in  the  same  manner  he  got 
to  know  that  there  was  a  war  between  France 
and  Prussia,  and  that  the  capital  of  France 
was  surrounded  by  a  German  army.  Since 
the  departure  of  the  Germans  he  has  heard 
from  some  friends  of  his  that  Thiers  has  been 
succeeded  by  Marshal  MacMahon,  and,  to  my 
great  surprise,  he  evidently  was  aware  that 


8  The  Mount. 

the  Due  de  Broglie  was  atone  time  Prime 
Minister.  He  knew  something  of  the  attempt 
to  restore  Henri  V.,  but  that  was  because  a 
near  relation  of  his  was  a  friend  of  the  exiled 
Prince,  and  in  correspondence  with  Frohsdorf, 
whither  he  went  on  a  pilgrimage,  to  be  close 
to  the  person  of  his  sovereign.  It  is  needless 
to  add  that  the  contemporary  history  of  neigh- 
boring countries  is  a  blank  in  my  friend's 
mind,  but  he  knows  nearly  all  that  is  to  be 
known  about  their  condition  from  the  time 
of  Caesar  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Yet  although  my  friend's  knowledge  of  anti- 
quity is  bought  at  the  cost  of  this  ignorance 
of  the  present,  it  is  well  worth  the  sacrifice, 
for  thousands  of  people  know  the  contents  of 
the  newspapers,  for  one  who  keeps  alive  the 
record  of  bygone  generations.  If  I  want  to 
learn  the  names  of  the  men  who  composed 
the  last  French  Ministry,  the  idlers  in  the 
nearest  cafe  can  tell  me ;  but  if  I  want  accurate 
knowledge  about  some  epoch  in  the  past  his- 
tory of  the  very  locality  where  these  idlers 
live,  they  cannot  tell  me.  The  human  race 
may,  therefore,  well  afford  that  a  few  scattered 
antiquaries  here  and  there  should  be  careless 
of  the  present  that  they  may  be  careful  of  the 


The  Mount.  9 

too  easily  and  readily  forgotten  past.  It  is 
they  who,  by  labors  of  infinite  patience,  re- 
warded always  by  the  ridicule  of  their  neigh- 
bors, preserve  the  chain  of  the  world's  history 
and  have  even  been  so  successful  as  to  restore 
many  a  missing  link. 

Not  only  is  the  Antiquary  sufficiently  inde- 
pendent of  public  opinion  to  remain  content- 
edly ignorant  of  newspapers,  but  in  his  ways 
of  life,  as  the  reader  will  abundantly  learn 
before  he  comes  to  the  close  of  this  narrative, 
my  antiquarian  friend  has  had  the  courage 
and  wisdom  to  follow  his  own  taste  and  gov- 
ern his  expenditure  on  principles  in  harmony 
with  his  own  character  and  pursuits.  Thus, 
in  his  house,  there  are  what  may  be  called  a 
set  of  state  apartments,  furnished  as  an  artist 
with  antiquarian  tastes,  or  an  antiquary  with 
artistic  tastes,  might  be  expected  to  furnish 
them.  There  is  a  certain  tendency  towards 
magnificence  here  and  there,  but  never  of  the 
vulgar  kind,  and  every  object  has  its  character 
and  history.  No  upholsterer  had  the  furnish- 
ing of  these  rooms,  but  the  owner  gradually 
gathered  round  him  things  at  the  same  time 
rich  and  beautiful  and  possessing  some  histori- 
cal interest.  His  drawing-rooms  are,  in  fact,  a 


io  The  Mount. 

museum  that  you  may  live  in,  or  a  habitation 
that  you  may  study  in.  The  mirrors  are  old 
Venetian  glass  with  the  rich  Italian  frame ;  the 
time-piece  is  a  curious  example,  and  very 
elegant,  of  the  earliest  French  workmanship 
of  that  kind ;  the  busts  are  antique  marbles ; 
the  books  on  the  table  are  illuminated  manu- 
scripts of  the  middle  ages.  But  the  real 
museum,  for  of  course  the  Antiquary  has  a 
museum,  consists  of  a  large  room  and  a  gal- 
lery upstairs,  full  of  accumulated  treasures 
from  antiquity  down  to  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  especially  and  peculiarly  rich  in  remnants 
of  Gaulish  workmanship  and  the  workman- 
ship of  the  Roman  occupants  of  Gaul.  The 
whole  of  this  has  been  gathered  by  and  for 
the  historical  and  artistic  sense,  never  for  vul- 
gar luxury,  and,  although  the  Antiquary  has 
plenty  of  roomy  armchairs  covered  with  tap- 
estry or  velvet,  I  have  seen  him,  for  a  week 
together,  use  nothing  but  a  hard  wooden  stool 
without  either  a  cushion  or  a  back  to  it.  So 
with  cookery;  as  the  Antiquary  is  a  giver  of 
good  dinners,  he  cannot  in  his  town  house  do 
without  the  services  of  an  accomplished  cook, 
but  anywhere  else  he  is  perfectly  contented 
with  a  basin  of  soup  or  a  piece  of  bread  and 


The  Mount.  n 

an  egg,  and  can  alter  all  his  habits  as  easily 
as  a  soldier  accustomed  to  the  changes  and 
chances  of  war-time.  This  is  a  very  uncom- 
mon faculty  in  a  man  of  his  age,  for  he  is 
nearly  sixty,  especially  when  men  so  well 
advanced  in  life  have  every  luxury  at  their 
command  that  self-indulgence  pets  itself  with. 

After  dejeuner  we  set  off  on  our  expedition, 
driving  on  a  good  road  under  a  burning  sun, 
with  a  fair  landscape  on  every  side  in  the 
freshness  of  the  beginning  of  June.  For  me 
there  is  always  plenty  of  entertainment  in 
driving  through  a  picturesque  country  even 
without  a  companion,  but  the  pleasure  is 
much  enhanced  when  one  has  a  companion 
able  to  appreciate  everything  on  the  way, 
and  well  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the 
localities. 

The  first  village  we  came  to,  called  Monthe- 
lon,  is  very  celebrated  in  French  ecclesiastical 
history  as  having  been  for  some  years  the 
residence  of  an  excellent  lady  whose  reputation 
for  goodness  was  so  great  that  it  survived  her, 
and  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  her  death 
was  still  so  powerful  that  Pope  Clement  XIII. 
canonized  her  as  a  saint.  She  was  married  to 
Christophe  de  Rabutin,  Baron  of  Chantal,  in 


12  The  Mount. 

1592,  and  eight  years  afterwards  her  husband 
was  accidentally  killed  by  a  friend  of  his  when 
out  hunting.  He  left  her  with  six  children, 
and  she  came  to  the  chateau  at  Monthelon, 
where  she  stayed  seven  years  and  a  half  with 
her  husband's  father.  Her  early  widowhood 
seems  to  have  led  to  a  remarkable  religious 
development  in  her  mind,  and  the  rest  of  her 
life  was  passed  in  educating  her  family  and 
attending  to  the  poor.  Saint  Fran9ois  de  Sales 
came  to  Monthelon  and  told  her  of  his  project 
for  the  establishment  of  an  order  to  be  called 
the  Order  of  the  Visitation.  She  entered 
heartily  into  this  scheme,  and  in  1610  left 
Monthelon  to  go  to  Annecy,  that  she  might 
help  in  carrying  it  out  practically.  From  all 
that  I  have  been  able  to  learn  of  her,  she  was 
one  of  those  good  women  whom  everybody 
must  respect,  notwithstanding  religious  differ- 
ences. Her  memory  is  kept  perfectly  alive  by 
her  own  church,  and  there  are  occasionally 
pilgrimages  to  Monthelon,  though  it  is  not  so 
fashionable  as  Lourdes  or  Paray-le-Monial, 
because  she  was  not  so  miraculous  a  person- 
age as  Marie  Alacoque,  nor  is  Monthelon  a 
place  of  miracles  like  Lourdes.  It  is  a  very 
interesting  little  place,  however,  and  the 


The  Mount.  13 

chateau  the  good  Baronne  de  Chantal  lived 
in  is  still  in  general  aspect  quite  what  it  was 
in  her  time.  There  is  a  chapel  at  the  north 
end  which  in  the  interior  is  nothing  but  a 
narrow  room,  very  high  proportionately  to  its 
breadth,  but  the  chapel  has  a  belfry  and  but- 
tresses outside,  as  well  as  a  porch,  which  give 
it  an  ecclesiastical  aspect.  These  have  been 
lately  restored,  —  in  other  words,  the  old  belfry 
was  pulled  down  and  a  new  one  built  in  its 
place,  but  this  last  is  a  faithful  copy  of  the 
original.  The  spire  is  one  of  those  that  spread 
out  suddenly  at  the  bottom  like  the  rim  of  a 
peaked  hat.  Another  interesting  architectural 
feature  is  an  open  gallery  in  the  house  itself 
which  is  simply  a  corridor  left  free  to  the  air 
by  an  opening  in  the  wall  extending  its  whole 
length,  the  roof  being  here  supported  by  short 
columns.  It  is  surprising  how  very  valuable 
is  this  simple  device  from  the  architectural 
point  of  view,  as  the  columns  catch  the  light 
and  a  broad  shadow  always  lurks  somewhere 
in  the  corridor  itself.  The  staircase  is  exterior 
also  up  to  the  first  floor,  arrangements  bor- 
rowed from  southern  custom,  and  convenient 
in  the  latitude  only  during  a  third  of  the  year. 
It  is  pleasant  in  the  summer  evening  or  early 


14  The  Mount. 

morning  to  get  a  little  fresh  air  as  you  pass 
from  one  room  to  another  in  the  open,  but  not 
quite  so  agreeable  when  the  cold  blasts  gather 
furiously  in  the  corridor  in  the  depth  of  a 
Morvan  winter  Seen  from  the  opposite  side, 
the  chateau  presents  the  usual  appearance  of 
houses  of  that  class  with  massive  round  towers 
at  the  angles  and  large  picturesque  dormer 
windows  in  the  roof;  but  notwithstanding  its 
apparent  size  it  is  a  most  inconvenient  place 
to  live  in.  Some  one  suggested  to  me  a  few 
years  ago  that  I  might  get  it  on  lease;  and 
the  situation  was  very  attractive,  for  it  is  in  a 
lovely  valley  near  a  pure  and  beautiful  stream, 
but  although  the  house  was  not  in  very  bad 
repair,  and  there  were  several  large  habitable 
rooms,  the  arrangement  of  them  was  so  exces- 
sively inconvenient  that  we  abandoned  the 
idea  after  one  visit.  The  place  belongs  to 
the  Prince  de  Montholon,  who  takes  an  inter- 
est in  its  preservation,  and  it  is  inhabited  at 
present  by  a  farmer  and  dealer  in  bark  for 
tanning,  who  leaves  everything  just  as  he 
found  it.  The  tenant  most  to  be  dreaded  for 
a  place  like  this  is  a  rich  bourgeois  with  a  pas- 
sion for  neat  windows,  tidy  slate  roofs,  and 
iron  railings. 


The  Mount.  15 

There  is  a  remarkable  little  church  at 
Monthelon  of  the  pure  Romanesque  type, 
which  always  seems  to  me  the  most  suitable 
kind  of  architecture  for  a  village  church  when 
there  is  not  much  money  to  be  laid  out. 
Unfortunately  these  little  old  Romanesque 
churches  are  rapidly  disappearing  all  over 
the  country,  for  whenever  they  are  out  of 
repair,  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  let  an 
old  structure  fall  into  that  state,  the  cure  is 
seized  with  an  ardent  ambition  to  get  rid  of 
his  old  church  altogether  and  build  a  gaunt 
new  edifice  in  place  of  it,  of  the  most  meagre 
Gothic  that  poverty  in  money  and  poverty  in 
ideas  can  together  realize.  What  I  like  so 
much  in  the  little  old  Romanesque  buildings 
is  their  total  absence  of  false  pretension,  their 
substantial  strength,  and  their  perfect  snug- 
ness.  The  transition  from  the  substantial 
old  cottages,  centuries  old,  to  the  little  Ro- 
manesque church  is  so  natural  that  the 
peasant  must  feel  as  much  at  home  in  one 
as  in  the  other,  whereas  a  church  that  seems 
as  if  it  had  been  picked  up  in  some  new 
American  town  and  set  down  again  in  the 
middle  of  a  quaint  old  Morvan  village  is  a 
glaring  incongruity — for  the  present.  The 


1 6  The  Mount. 

only  consolation  is  that  in  twenty  years  the 
villages  will  be  as  new  and  ugly  as  the  churches. 
To  my  taste,  however,  there  is  nothing  in 
village  architecture  to  be  compared  with  the 
chancel  and  apse  of  such  a  building  as  that 
at  Monthelon,  so  simple  and  yet  so  complete, 
so  substantial  in  rustic  strength,  and  yet  at 
the  same  time  so  full  of  satisfactions  for  the 
artistic  sense  in  pleasant  changes  of  curves 
in  their  perspective,  and  various  light  and 
shade.  Even  the  priest  himself,  if  he  could 
but  think  so,  looks  far  more  effective  when 
officiating  in  a  tiny  chancel  that  is  like  an 
oratory,  than  he  ever  can  do  under  a  lofty 
roof,  make  himself  as  gorgeous  as  he  may. 
In  the  great  cathedrals  the  effort  of  the 
Roman  clergy  to  struggle  against  the  over- 
whelming immensity  of  their  architectural 
surroundings  is  never  more  than  half  suc- 
cessful ;  the  height  of  a  man  is  not  sufficient 
for  the  purpose,  though  he  blaze  with  gold 
and  jewels.  The  mitre  and  crosier  add  some- 
thing, the  banner  and  cross  still  more,  yet 
when  all  is  done  the  priests  look  like  mice 
on  the  floor  of  a  room. 

There  was  an  old  priest  at  Monthelon  who 
lived  in  great  simplicity,  but  sometimes  re- 


The  Mount.  17 

ceived  visits  from  cures  in  the  neighborhood. 
Two  of  these  came  to  see  him  on  one  occa- 
sion and  stayed  to  a  frugal  dejeuner.  After 
they  were  gone,  the  old  man  fell  asleep  with 
his  feet  close  to  the  blazing  logs  upon  the 
hearth,  and  his  wooden  shoes  unfortunately 
took  fire ;  but  the  cure  went  on  sleeping  still, 
and  he  did  not  awake  until  his  feet  were 
rather  badly  burnt.  The  incident  in  itself 
is  at  the  same  time  very  ludicrous  and  very 
painful,  —  the  idea  of  the  cure  reclining  tran- 
quilly in  his  easy-chair  whilst  his  wooden 
shoes  were  burning  with  the  logs,  is  just  one 
of  those  ideas  that  Goya  would  have  delighted 
to  illustrate  in  his  fearful  caricatures;  but 
the  matter  did  not  end  there.  The  popular 
rumor,  always  rather  malicious  about  eccle- 
siastics, took  up  the  matter  in  its  own  way, 
and  set  it  abroad  that  the  two  cures  who  had 
been  there  to  dejeuner  had  rewarded  their 
entertainer  by  forcibly  putting  his  feet  into 
the  fire  in  the  fun  of  a  drunken  frolic.  One 
of  the  two  felt  so  hurt  by  the  currency  of  these 
stories  that  he  took  the  trouble  to  contradict 
them  in  the  pulpit,  but  with  a  result  entirely 
different  from  what  he  intended ;  for,  as  he 
told  me  himself,  the  peasants  who  heard  him 


1 8  The  Mount. 

went  about  saying  that  he  had  made  a  full 
confession.  It  is  wonderful  how  difficult  it  is 
to  correct  a  popular  impression  even  in  classes 
very  superior  to  the  French  peasantry.1  The 
old  cure  whose  feet  were  burnt  had  some  curi- 
ous oddities  or  originalities.  He  was  fond  of 
putting  Latin  into  his  sermons,  a  little  bit  at 
a  time,  his  own  Latin,  not  of  the  best.  Here 
is  an  authentic  extract  in  the  original  tongues, 
for  of  course  it  would  be  entirely  spoilt  by 
any  attempt  at  translation. 

"  Lorsque  je  paraitrai  devant  Notre  Seigneur  il 
me  demandera  '  Cure  Monthelon  ius  ubi  sunt  bre- 
betis  meis  '  —  ce  qui  veut  dire  '  Cure  de  Monthelon 
ou  sont  mes  brebis/  et  moi  je  lui  repondrai  '  Betes 
je  les  ai  trouv6es,  betes  je  les  ai  laiss^es,  et  betes 
elles  sont  probablement  encore.' " 

The  good  priest  was  not  more  complimen- 
tary in  his  French  than  classical  in  his  Latin. 

1  I  remember  a  curious  instance  of  this  in  England.  There 
was  an  impression,  amongst  the  upper  classes,  that  insanity 
had  been  prevalent  in  a  certain  family,  and  this  was  asserted 
to  be  the  case  on  the  authority  of  a  certain  historian  whose 
name  was  used  as  evidence ;  yet  that  historian  had  never 
printed  any  assertion  to  that  effect.  In  the  same  way,  nothing 
is  more  common  than  for  things  to  be  believed  to  be  in  the 
Bible  which  are  not  in  the  Bible,  though  almost  every  Eng- 
lishman has  a  copy  of  it. 


The  Mount.  19 

After  leaving  this  little  village  we  came  to 
a  pond  that  had  been  intentionally  dried  up, 
and  my  companion  told  me  the  reason,  which  is 
worth  mentioning.  Somebody  had  planted  in 
it  an  aquatic  plant  called  cornuelle  in  French  ; 
the  botanical  name  of  it  is  Trapa  natans, 
and  it  belongs  to  the  family  of  Haloragece. 
I  am  not  aware  that  it  has  an  English  name. 
This  plant  produces  an  edible  fruit,  a  sort  of 
nut,  from  which  comes  another  of  its  popular 
names,  the  chataigne  cCeau,  and  the  country 
people  make  use  of  it  at  home  or  carry  it  to 
market  as  a  salable  article  of  consumption. 
The  fruit  is  farinaceous  and  sweet;  it  maybe 
made  into  a  sort  of  porridge,  and  bread  ap- 
pears to  have  been  made  from  it  in  ancient 
times.  The  only  objection  to  the  plant  is 
that,  when  once  it  has  taken  root  in  a  pond, 
it  soon  gets  possession  of  the  whole  water, 
which  is  entirely  invaded  and  occupied  by  it. 
Nothing  can  be  done  with  the  pond  after- 
wards except  to  drain  it  and  cultivate  the 
ground  as  a  field,  for  even  if  after  the  lapse 
of  years  the  place  is  put  under  water  again 
the  cornuelle  reappears  almost  immediately, 
as  some  root  fibres  are  sure  to  remain  in  the 
earth.  The  dry  pond  we  passed  had  been 


2O  The  Mount. 

permanently  abandoned  as  a  hopeless  enter- 
prise, which  says  a  good  deal  for  the  power  of 
one  aquatic  weed  in  its  contest  against  the 
energy  of  man  ;  for  a  fish-pond  is  a  very  pro- 
ductive property  in  this  country,  —  more  pro- 
ductive than  dry  land  when  the  land  is  not 
of  the  best  quality  and  the  pond  can  be  made 
without  too  large  an  expenditure  of  capital 
on  an  expensive  dam. 

The  castle  or  tower  of  Vautheau,  which  we 
came  upon  rather  later,  is  one  of  the  most  per- 
fect examples  of  the  feudal  castle  in  Burgundy. 
and  the  remaining  tower  is  in  that  happy 
condition  between  repair  and  ruin  when  noth- 
ing has  been  spoiled  for  the  eye,  either  by 
time  or  meddlesome  repairs.  The  roof  is  still 
there,  the  door  is  still  locked,  but  nobody  lives 
in  the  rooms.  The  rest  of  the  castle  is  a  ruin. 
My  companion  the  Antiquary  proposed  one 
of  his  brilliant  ideas  which  he  is  quite  the  man 
to  carry  into  execution.  He  proposed  to  rent 
the  tower  from  its  owner  merely  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  furnishing  one  room  perfectly  with  the 
old  mediaeval  things  from  his  own  collection, 
and  if  he  does  this,  which  I  have  good  hopes 
he  will,  that  room  will  produce  quite  perfectly 
the  illusion  of  a  return  to  the  real  middle 


The  Mount.  21 

ages,  so  far  as  the  picturesque  is  concerned. 
He  enumerated  to  me  all  the  treasures  that  he 
could  spare  for  its  adornment,  certainly  mak- 
ing in  the  aggregate  a  much  richer  plenishing 
than  the  room  ever  knew  in  the  times  of  its 
mighty  seigneurs;  for  my  friend  proposed  to 
himself,  as  people  generally  do  in  such  pro- 
jects, rather  the  realization  of  an  ideal  than 
the  literal  restoration  of  a  bygone  reality. 
There  are  two  good  chambers  in  the  tower 
that  might  be  treated  in  this  manner,  and  if 
ever  the  scheme  is  carried  out,  the  Antiquary 
will  possess  a  rare  half-way  house  between  his 
town  residence  and  the  Mount,  dividing  the 
distance  just  equally,  and  thus  affording  him 
an  excellent  excuse  for  sleeping  in  the  midst 
of  his  treasures.  It  is  an  antiquary's  fancy, 
but  it  might  equally  be  a  poet's  fancy,  or  a 
painter's.  The  tower  itself  is  a  perfect  un- 
spoiled gem,  rich  with  its  own  beauty  and  the 
beauty  of  the -most  magnificent  ivy  I  ever 
beheld,  whilst  the  cluster  of  old  cottages  near 
the  castle,  the  elegant  Renaissance  pigeon 
tower  with  its  dome  and  crown  of  columns, 
the  magnificent  chestnuts  that  abound  in  the 
neighborhood  and  the  glorious  breadths  of 
landscape  to  be  seen  from  there,  would  occupy 


22  The  Mount. 

a  painter  for  many  a  summer's  day.  The  poet 
or  story-teller  would  find  suggestions  in  the 
ancient  history  and  legends  of  the  place. 
Jacques,  Sire  de  Vautheau,  was  a  zealous 
Huguenot  in  times  when  it  needed  the  heroic 
temper  to  profess  any  shade  of  Protestantism 
here,  and  he  held  preachings  within  the  walls 
of  his  castle  which  were  attended  by  "  seven 
hundred  gentlemen  and  damsels."  It  is  said 
too,  by  historians  of  the  opposite  party,  that  in 
his  zeal  for  his  own  faith  he  rode  out  frequently 
from  Vautheau  with  a  band  of  Calvinist  sol- 
diers and  pillaged  the  churches  round  about. 
Jean  de  Traves,  of  this  family,  made  prisoner 
a  bishop  of  Chalons  in  1545  who  was  also  the 
confessor  of  Cardinal  de  Medicis,  on  his  way 
to  the  Council  of  Trent.  But  in  1653  the 
zeal  of  Protestantism  must  have  come  to  an 
end  in  this  family,  for  the  Count  of  Vautheau 
was  present  at  the  solemn  entry  of  a  new 
bishop  into  Autun.  Very  near  the  castle,  in  a 
beautiful  hollow,  under  the  shade  of  magnifi- 
cent old  trees  lies  a  well  bordered  by  wild- 
flowers,  and,  being  thirsty,  I  went  to  this  cool 
spring  to  drink.  On  this  the  Antiquary  said, 
"  Mind  you  take  the  diamond  if  the  opportu- 
nity presents  itself,  but  you  must  be  quick 


The  Mount.  23 

and  careful,  or  else  your  fate  will  be  terrible." 
I  thought,  "  Here  is  some  old  legend,  but 
I  can  wait  to  hear  it  till  I  have  slaked  my 
thirst";  so,  having  drunk  heartily  of  the  pure 
cool  water,  I  rejoined  my  friend  and  he  re- 
sumed the  subject  of  the  diamond. 

"  One  of  the  most  ancient  legends  in  France 
is  connected  with  that  well  where  you  have 
just  been  drinking,  and  the  peasants  all  be- 
lieve in  it  firmly  to  this  day.  It  is  the  foun- 
tain of  the  Wivre,1  which  is  a  supernatural 
serpent  that  always  carries  about  with  him  a 
diamond  of  prodigious  value.  He  comes  to 
this  well  to  drink,  and  whenever  he  does  so 
he  is  obliged  to  lay  down  his  diamond.  Now 
if  anybody  happens  to  be  there  when  the  ser- 
pent comes,  and  is  quick  enough  to  seize  the 
diamond  just  when  the  serpent  is  drinking, 
and  get  away  with  it  before  the  serpent  has 
slaked  his  thirst,  then  he  will  become  the  rich- 
est man  in  the  whole  world ;  but  if  the  Wivre 
perceives  that  he  is  robbed,  he  will  instantly 
slay  the  unsuccessful  thief.  However,  as  you 

1  Pronounced  Vivre,  of  course,  in  French.  I  wonder  if 
there  is  any  connection  between  this  word  and  the  name  of 
the  heraldic  monster  Wivern.  It  appears  highly  probable 
that  there  must  be  some  connection,  as  the  words  are  so  very 
nearly  identical. 


24  The  Mount. 

have  come  back  alive,  and  do  not  look  as  if 
you  had  just  got  possession  of  a  great  diamond, 
I  infer  that  the  Wivre  did  not  happen  to  visit 
his  well  at  the  same  time  with  you." 

The  legend  of  the  Wivre  is  very  persistent 
in  these  regions,  and  reappears  in  other  forms. 
It  is  the  old  story  of  the  dragon  or  serpent 
guardian,  whose  treasures  may  not  be  got  at 
without  the  utmost  peril.  We  shall  find  the 
Wivre  again  elsewhere,  at  a  distance  from  his 
well. 


The  Mount.  25 


CHAPTER   II. 

ST.  LtGER-sous-BEuvRAY. — A  LAKE  AND  PICTURESQUE 
SCENERY  —  ANCIENT  CHESTNUTS  —  WOLVES  AND  HY- 
DROPHOBIA —  DREADFUL  HAVOC  COMMITTED  BY  A  MAD 
WOLF — A  HUNT  ESTABLISHED  BY  EPISCOPAL  AU- 
THORITY—  BEAUTIFUL  SCENERY  —  THE  MOUNT  SEEN 
NEAR  —  OLD  HOUSES  AND  NEW  ROADS  —  ANALYSIS 
OF  ARTISTIC  QUALITIES  IN  AN  OLD  BUILDING  —  Co- 
COTTE  TRANSFORMED  INTO  A  SADDLE-HORSE  —  THE 
AUTHOR  REACHES  THE  SUMMIT  OF  THE  MOUNT  AND 
ORDERS  DINNER  —  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  ANTIQUA- 
RY'S MOUNTAIN  ESTABLISHMENT — His  SERVANT  PAU- 
CHARD  —  A  FOUNTAIN  AND  A  WINE  CELLAR. 

\  7[  7"E  stayed  half  an  hour  at  St.  Leger-sous- 
Beuvray,  an  old  village  in  the  midst  of 
beautiful  scenery.  There  are  two  old  manor- 
houses  in  this  village,  with  towers,  and  in  the 
bottom  of  the  valley  lies  a  beautiful  little 
lake  sheltered  by  hills  of  some  boldness  and 
elevation,  with  a  fine  view  of  Mount  Beuvray 
that  reflects  itself  in  the  water  just  as  moun- 
tains do  in  the  true  lake  districts.  Indeed,  by 
the  help  of  a  little  imagination  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult in  this  place  to  imagine  oneself  in  some 


26  TJie  Mount. 

part  of  Southern  Scotland  or  Wales.  A  ram- 
ble from  this  lake  to  the  village  of  St.  Leger, 
along  a  rough  bridle  path  that  passes  through 
a  farmyard,  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
little  walks  I  remember  anywhere.  The  build- 
ings seem  to  have  been  erected  on  purpose  to 
be  painted,  and  there  are  groves  of  gigantic 
chestnuts.  Indeed,  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Beuvray  —  and  the  rising  grounds  here  are 
nothing  but  the  advanced  buttresses  of  the 
Mount — is  remarkable  for  the  number  and 
size  of  its  ancient  chestnuts,  of  all  trees  the 
most  nobly  pictorial ;  but  my  companion  the 
Antiquary,  who  has  always  something  dis- 
agreeable to  tell  me  about  the  tasteless  de- 
structiveness  of  his  contemporaries,  says  that 
within  his  own  recollection  great  numbers  of 
the  finest  old  trees  have  disappeared,  and  he 
can  point  to  many  a  situation  now  sadly  de- 
nuded where  formerly  stood  families  of  giant 
brethren,  casting  large  breadths  of  shade. 
However,  there  is  still  many  a  corner  about 
the  Beuvray  that  neither  the  axe  of  the  wood- 
man nor  the  hideous  erection  of  the  modern 
mason  has  ruined  by  destruction  or  addition, 
—  places  where  poet  might  ramble,  or  painter 
sketch,  without  shutting  his  eyes  to  anything. 


The  Mount.  27 

The  village  of  St.  Leger  is  remarkable  for 
one  of  the  most  terrible  incidents  in  the  his- 
tory of  animal  life.  Wolves,  like  dogs,  are 
subject  to  hydrophobia,  and  on  the  i8th  of 
June,  1718,  at  nightfall,  the  place  was  visited 
by  a  mad  wolf  from  the  top  of  the  Beuvray  that 
wounded  and  disfigured  no  less  than  sixteen 
people,  of  whom  all  but  one  died  of  hydropho- 
bia. The  single  exception  was  a  woman  who 
had  only  been  scratched  by  the  animal's  claws. 
After  this  incident  a  confraternity  of  St.  Hu- 
bert was  established,  in  connection  with  the 
church  and  by  the  authority  of  the  bishop,  for 
the  destruction  of  wild  beasts.  This  is  a  curi- 
ous example  of  a  hunt  established  by  episco- 
pal authority,  and  in  the  closest  connection 
with  religion.  Another  mad  wolf  came  down 
from  the  Beuvray  on  the  eve  of  Pentecost, 
some  time  in  the  last  century,  and,  having 
already  bitten  a  shepherdess  and  several  cows 
on  the  hill,  attacked  three  men  in  a  hamlet  on 
the  other  side,  grievously  injuring  one  of 
them.  This  is  a  thing  the  wolf  never  does, 
when  in  his  ordinary  health  and  senses. 

Between  the  village  of  St.  Leger  and  the 
Mount,  the  road  passes  through  scenery  of 
almost  unimaginable  richness.  Beautiful 


28  The  Mount. 

slopes  are  wooded  with  noble  trees,  and  there 
is  an  elegance  in  the  lines  of  the  hills  in  the 
highest  degree  delightful  to  the  artistic  sense. 
There  is  wood  enough,  and  of  the  most  majes- 
tic kind,  but  there  is  not  too  much  wood; 
you  see  beautiful  meadows  with  fine  shadows 
lengthening  down  their  slopes,  and  plenty  of 
open  spaces  for  the  golden  sunshine  to  dwell 
upon.  This  is  one  of  those  very  rare  local- 
ities where  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to 
offend  the  most  fastidious  taste,  —  scenery  as 
rich  as  it  can  be  in  beautiful  forms  of  earth 
and  magnificent  vegetation  of  ancient  trees, 
without  anything  whatever  to  spoil  it.  Under 
the  warm-toned  afternoon  sunshine  it  looked 
like  some  poet's  dream  of  Arcady,  the  beauti- 
ful hills,  one  behind  another,  leading  the  eye 
on  and  on  till  it  rested  upon  the  dim  blue 
land  beyond  the  Loire. 

To  the  right  of  this  rose  the  Mount,  a  great 
shapely  mass,  not  a  mountain  with  rocky  sum- 
mits and  ravines  scooped  out  by  the  floods  of 
innumerable  years,  but  a  beautifully  formed  hill 
clothed  to  the  very  top  with  forest ;  at  least 
so  it  appeared  from  the  vale  in  which  we  were 
travelling,  but  happily  there  are  still  spaces 
clear  of  trees.  I  say  "  happily,"  because  noth- 


The  Mount.  29 

ing  so  completely  destroys  all  enjoyment  of  a 
hill  or  mountain  as  a  dense  wood  all  over  it. 
There  is  another  hill  in  this  country,  higher 
than  the  Beuvray,  from  which  the  views  would 
be  magnificent  if  any  one  might  be  permitted 
to  behold  them ;  but  the  trees  make  this  an 
impossibility,  and  you  might  as  well  bury 
yourself  in  some  lowland  plantation  as  climb 
that  lofty  height. 

The  high-road  goes  over  a  sort  of  col,  as  a 
Swiss  would  call  it,  rising  steadily  till  it  comes 
to  the  pass  and  then  descending  on  the  other 
side  for  several  miles.  In  this  way,  at  least 
half  the  ascent  is  made  before  we  know  that  we 
have  begun  it.  Few  of  the  excellent  high-roads 
that  were  made  all  over  France  forty  years 
ago  have  produced  a  more  beneficial  change 
than  these  good  roads  in  the  hilly  district  of 
the  Morvan.  Before  they  were  executed,  many 
parts  of  the  district  were  only  accessible  on 
horseback  or  in  the  rude  bullock-cart  of  the 
peasantry,  and  the  consequence  of  such  diffi- 
cult communication  was  brigandage.  The 
neighborhood  of  the  Beuvray  was  especially 
inaccessible,  from  the  abrupt  character  of  the 
minor  hills  which  form  its  buttresses,  and  from 
the  wild  situations  of  the  hamlets  that  are 


30  The  Mount. 

scattered  round  it.  One  has  the  impression, 
a  quite  involuntary  impression,  that  a  road  has 
existed  forever;  it  seems,  like  a  river,  to  be  one 
of  the  natural  arteries  of  the  world,  and  when 
we  find  buildings  by  the  roadside,  we  con- 
clude at  once  that  they  were  erected  there  for 
the  convenience  that  the  road  afforded,  when 
the  truth  very  often  is  that  the  buildings  are 
of  much  earlier  date,  and  the  road  has  come 
there  since,  greatly  to  their  advantage,  yet 
without  intentional  consideration  of  it.  An 
excellent  illustration  of  this  is  a  cluster  of  most 
picturesque  farm  buildings  where  we  stayed  to 
leave  the  carriage  just  before  reaching  the  col. 
They  were  probably  four  hundred  years  old, 
perhaps  older,  and  for  at  least  three  centuries 
and  a  half  out  of  that  time  they  must  have 
remained  an  isolated  tenement  on  the  slope  of 
a  wild  Morvan  hill,  accessible  only  by  some 
rocky  or  tortuous  bridle-path.  The  nineteenth 
century  brings  a  broad  highway  to  the  very 
door,  and  so  the  buildings  immediately  begin 
to  look  as  if  they  had  been  erected  for  conven- 
ience of  access  to  it,  losing  half  their  character 
inconsequence.  How  subtly  dependent  is  the 
effect  of  everything  upon  its  surroundings ! 
In  a  narrative  of  travel  I  think  it  is  always 


The  Mount.  31 

worth  while  to  set  down,  not  only  what  hap- 
pens to  you,  but  what  you  learn ;  for  surely 
the  latter  is  the  chief  result,  since  it  remains 
with  you  permanently  afterwards.  The  Anti- 
quary and  I  had  a  conversation  about  archi- 
tecture and  the  work  of  modern  architects, 
whilst  the  things  were  being  transferred  from 
the  carriage  to  a  rude  cart  that  was  to  take 
them  up  the  hill.  Our  talk  was  suggested 
by  a  range  of  buildings  that  seemed  to  me 
well  worth  drawing.  Why  was  it  worth 
drawing?  How  was  it  that  rude  unlettered 
peasants,  centuries  ago,  could  design  an  in- 
teresting building  when  the  clever  educated 
architects  in  modern  towns  only  design 
things  that  make  an  artist  shut  his  eyes,  or 
look  in  another  direction  ?  Well,  to  begin 
with,  the  old  building  was  full  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  delicate  curvature.  The  sky 
line  was  in  curves,  the  lines  of  the  eaves  were 
in  curves,  graceful  as  the  hanging  of  a  gar- 
land, and  the  curious  felicity  of  these  forms 
was  unexpected,  being  suggested  only  by 
convenience  wherever  they  occurred.  There 
was  a  window  high  in  the  wall,  so  the  eaves 
took  a  leap  over  it,  graceful  as  the  flight  of 
a  swallow  when  it  passes  over  a  hedge.  One 


32  The  Mount. 

end  of  the  building  rested  against  the  hill- 
side, so  the  eaves  hung  down  from  it  like 
a  chain,  and  there  was  just  one  piece  of  quite 
regular  mathematical  curvature  as  a  climax, 
—  the  arch  of  a  doorway  in  good  stone,  with 
mouldings.  Then  there  was  plenty  of  light 
and  shade,  —  shadows  cast  from  projecting 
roofs  or  nestling  in  cool  recesses,  lights 
catching  brilliantly  on  pieces  of  woodwork 
or  gray  stone,  and  losing  themselves  along 
the  rough  surface  of  the  walls.  The  color, 
too,  was  perfectly  harmonious,  all  in  beauti- 
ful grays,  with  dark  purples  and  browns, 
nothing  discordant  or  offensive  anywhere. 
"Now  suppose,"  said  my  friend  the  Anti- 
quary, "a  misfortune  which  in  these  days 
is  only  too  likely  to  happen.  Suppose  that 
the  owner  of  this  beautiful  old  building  were 
to  take  it  into  his  head  that  he  would  like 
a  new  one  better,  and  so  pull  it  all  down 
and  erect  what  he  would  consider  a  hand- 
some new  building  in  its  place.  You  would 
have  a  roof  in  glaring  red  tiles  without  one 
curve  in  it  anywhere,  a  flat  rectangular  wall 
without  a  shadow,  and  every  line  either  vertical 
or  horizontal  except  the  perspective  of  the  tiles, 
which  would  be  like  a  perspective  diagram  in 
a  handbook  of  elementary  science." 


The  Mount.  33 

I  had  taken  the  precaution  to  put  a  saddle 
in  the  carriage,  so  Cocotte  was  soon  trans- 
formed into  a  saddle-horse,  and  in  this  guise 
began  the  last  ascent.  We  were  soon  buried 
in  the  woods  on  a  narrow  road  that  climbed  at 
first  in  zigzags  and  afterwards  in  a  straighter 
line.  The  road  was  just  broad  enough  for 
the  wheels  of  the  cart  that  carried  our  bag- 
gage; but  the  Antiquary  took  a  much  deeper 
interest  in  it  than  in  the  fine  high-road  that 
we  had  left,  for  this  was  a  Gaulish  road 
that  had  existed  before  the  Roman  invasion. 
There  are  several  such  roads  on  Mount  Beu- 
vray,  all  of  them  leading  to  the  summit. 
After  a  good  deal  of  climbing  we  emerged 
from  the  wood  and  found  ourselves  upon 
an  elevated  shoulder  of  the  hill,  between  a 
deep  dell  to  the  left  and  a  great  projecting 
spur  of  the  mountain  to  the  right  with  a 
rock  pinnacle  at  the  point  of  it,  and  now  we 
had  views  over  a  great  stretch  of  country. 
"  That  rock,"  said  the  Antiquary,  "  is  the  rock 
of  the  Wivre,  at  whose  well  you  drank  as  we 
came  along.  I  will  tell  you  more  about  it 
afterwards." 

The  narrow  road  plunged  again  into  the 
wood,  and  soon  became  very  steep  indeed. 

3 


34  The  Mount. 

I  am  a  little  in  advance  of  the  Antiquary 
and  the  cart,  for  he  has  requested  me  to 
ride  forward  and  order  dinner. 

Order  dinner  on  the  top  of  Mount  Beu- 
vray  ?  Yes,  very  decidedly ;  and  I  know 
perfectly  well  where  to  order  it,  for  this  is 
not  the  first  time  that  I  have  climbed  up 
into  this  elevated  region.  I  keep  on  up  the 
steep  road  till  within  a  hundred  yards  of 
the  summit,  and  then  turn  aside  to  the 
right,  along  another  narrow  way  amongst 
the  trees,  and  suddenly  come  upon  the  An- 
tiquary's own  mountain  establishment,  the 
loftiest  habitation  in  Burgundy. 

A  few  words  of  description  are  necessary 
in  this  place,  for  without  them  the  reader 
would  never  guess  what  sort  of  a  mansion 
was  prepared  for  our  reception.  First,  there 
is  a  large  clear  space  enclosed  by  wooden 
railings  and  sheltered  from  the  wind  by  the 
summit  of  the  hill,  which  rises  steeply  to 
the  east,  for  we  are  not  quite  on  the  top 
yet,  though  very  near  it. 

At  one  end  of  this  cleared  ground  stand 
two  wooden  huts,  and  a  stone  cottage  be- 
tween them  with  a  thatched  roof.  At  the 
other  end  there  is  a  thatched  shed  with  two 


The  Mount.  35 

divisions.  This  is  my  friend's  encampment. 
The  stone  cottage  is  a  recent  development 
of  luxury,  built  a  year  or  two  since,  but  I 
knew  the  encampment  in  its  first  begin- 
nings. It  began  with  a  single  wooden  hut, 
the  smaller  of  the  two  that  still  exist.  Next, 
a  rude  little  wigwam  was  erected  for  a  domes- 
tic, but  the  rain  got  into  the  wigwam,  and 
it  was  thought  inhuman  to  make  him  sleep 
there ;  so  a  second  hut  was  built,  larger  and 
more  commodious.  This  accounts  for  the 
two  huts,  and  the  establishment  was  limited 
to  them  for  some  seasons,  except  when  I 
added  a  tent  of  my  own  to  it ;  but  there 
is  a  law  which  governs  all  permanent  camps 
which  the  Antiquary  could  no  more  escape 
than  anybody  else.  A  camp  is  kept  in  the 
true  camp  condition  only  by  being  moved  from 
place  to  place.  Once  fixed,  it  soon  becomes  a 
camp  no  longer.  You  begin,  let  us  say,  with 
a  tent,  —  a  genuine  tent,  that  can  be  struck 
or  erected  in  a  few  minutes.  If  you  are  on 
the  move,  your  tent  will  remain  a  tent,  and  its 
portable  quality  will  be  appreciated ;  but  if 
you  fix  your  camp  in  one  spot,  you  will  soon 
have  a  wooden  floor  to  your  tent,  next  you 
will  elevate  it  on  wooden  walls,  and  finally 


36  The  Mount. 

you  will  have  a  hut.  There  is  a  vast  differ- 
ence in  comfort  between  a  tent  and  a  hut,  so 
that  if  you  are  fixed  the  hut  becomes  inevita- 
ble. For  a  year  or  two  you  will  remain  satis- 
fied with  your  wooden  walls,  but  there  are 
certain  objections  to  the  best  of  huts,  espe- 
cially when  they  get  rather  old,  and  the  next 
thing  you  dream  of  will  be  a  stone  cottage. 
The  climax  of  your  improvements  will  be 
a  mansion,  if  you  are  rich  enough  to  build 
one  on  the  spot,  and  I  have  actually  seen 
this  done  in  the  Highlands ;  I  have  seen  the 
rough  cottage,  where  the  sportsmen  enjoyed 
themselves  infinitely,  replaced  by  a  lordly 
shooting-lodge,  where  they  enjoyed  them- 
selves less  because  the  good  house  brought 
with  it  all  the  exigencies  of  etiquette.  The 
Antiquary  has  reached  the  cottage  state  now, 
but  it  is  a  genuine  rough  cottage,  and  not 
what  is  called  a  cottage  at  Scarborough  or 
Brighton. 

I  stop  at  the  entrance  to  the  rude  enclosure 
and  call  out  vigorously,  "  Pauchard."  The 
door  of  the  cottage  opens,  and  Pauchard 
makes  his  appearance  with  an  exclamation 
of  delight,  throwing  up  both  hands  into  the 
air,  and  running  towards  me  with  many 


The  Mount.  37 

words  of  welcome.  Pauchard  is  cook,  house- 
keeper, butler,  chambermaid,  etc.,  to  the  An- 
tiquary when  he  lives  on  the  Mount,  and 
in  all  these  functions  eminent  for  a  combi- 
nation of  zeal,  rapidity,  and  discretion  beyond 
praise.  He  is  a  little  man,  a  very  little  man, 
but  built  like  a  little  Hercules,  and  as  active 
as  he  is  strong.  A  more  cheerful,  good- 
tempered,  affectionate,  and  perfectly  reliable 
servant  was  master  never  blessed  with. 

Pauchard  and  I  are  great  friends,  but  I 
know  my  place  too  well  to  imagine  that  his 
exclamation  of  delight  was  entirely  for  myself. 
One  third  of  it  was  for  me,  two  thirds  for 
Cocotte.  He  likes  me,  he  loves  Cocotte,  and 
she  returns  this  affection  with  all  the  tender- 
ness the  equine  nature  is  capable  of;  certainly 
she  prefers  Pauchard  to  her  master. 

Cocotte  is  soon  at  liberty  to  wander  about 
the  hill  at  her  pleasure,  —  we  know  that  she 
will  not  wander  far.  Pauchard  sets  to  work 
heartily  with  his  pans  in  the  kitchen ;  the 
cart  arrives  with  our  luggage  and  the  deal 
table,  and  we  busy  ourselves  in  getting  things 
in  order. 

The  cottage  is  a  substantial  little  building, 
entirely  in  granite,  and  containing  a  couple 


38  The  Moitnt. 

of  rooms,  one  of  them  rather  capacious,  for 
the  master,  the  other  smaller,  for  Pauchard 
and  his  pans.  The  Antiquary,  whose  town 
mansion  is  finished  with  pretty  inlaid  parquets 
that  nobody  but  a  barbarian  would  walk  upon 
in  anything  but  dress  boots,  has  judged,  with 
perfect  taste  and  good  sense,  that  his  moun- 
tain cell  must  be  organized  on  quite  different 
principles.  There  is  no  French  polish  here. 
The  joists  in  the  ceiling  are  all  visible,  and  of 
oak  simply  planed,  over  them  a  boarding  of 
oak  also,  just  planed  but  no  more.  The 
granite  walls  are  covered  with  one  coating 
of  rough  mortar,  but  no  finish  of  plaster. 
The  chimney-piece  consists  of  three  huge 
blocks  of  stone,  almost  as  rude  as  the  con- 
structions at  Stonehenge.  The  only  luxury 
is  a  wooden  floor,  but  we  may  walk  upon  it 
with  nailed  boots  if  we  like.  The  tables  are 
deal  boards  supported  on  trestles.  Some 
shelves  and  two  cupboards  complete  the  fur- 
nishing. Stay — I  had  forgot  the  chairs  — 
stools  with  hard  wooden  seats  and  no  backs. 
The  Antiquary  sits  on  one  of  these,  without 
desiring  more  luxurious  rest ;  but  after  a  hard 
day's  walking  upon  the  Mount,  I  borrow  a 
rush-bottomed  chair  of  Pauchard,  for  he  has 


The  Mount.  39 

two  of  them  in  his  kitchen,  and,  like  other 
rich  men,  can  only  use  one  of  his  luxuries  at 
once. 

My  first  request  is  for  a  glass  of  water, 
such  water  as  no  Londoner  or  Parisian  ever 
drinks.  Close  to  the  cottage  there  is  a  foun- 
tain, a  pure  perennial  spring,  filling  a  clean 
little  reservoir  of  about  a  cubic  yard,  cut  in 
the  living  rock,  and  arched  over  with  antique 
masonry.  The  water  is  as  clear  as  the  air, 
and  always  cold,  even  in  this  hot  weather. 
To  my  taste,  the  perfect  purity  and  inexhaust- 
ible abundance  of  this  and  other  fountains 
on  the  Beuvray  are  among  its  chief  delights. 
There  is  no  such  water  anywhere  in  the 
plains,  and,  do  what  you  will  by  filtering  and 
icing,  you  can  never  imitate  the  cold  clear 
fountains  that  flow  from  that  mother  of  all 
purity,  the  granite. 

The  Antiquary,  being  a  Burgundian,  does 
not  half  appreciate  his  fountain  as  he  ought. 
He  talks  of  it,  indeed,  with  the  grace  of  Virgil 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  Theocritus,  but  the 
fountain  from  which  he  drinks  is  of  another 
nature.  There  is  a  little  cavern,  well  guarded 
by  a  strong  door  with  great  iron  bars  and 
locks,  and  in  this  cavern  sleeps  many  a  bottle 


40  The  Mount. 

of  the  choicest  Burgundian  vintages.  I  drink 
more  water  in  a  day  than  the  Antiquary  does 
in  six  months,  but  I  do  it  in  secret  whenever 
possible,  for  when  my  host  catches  me  in  the 
act  a  grave  reproof  is  sure  to  follow.  He  is 
quite  seriously  persuaded  that  water  is  most 
dangerous,  and  that  the  vine  is  the  only 
spring  from  which  man  may  drink  in  safety. 


The  Mount.  41 


CHAPTER   III. 

A  REASON  FOR  THE  ANTIQUARY'S  SOJOURNS  ON  THE  MOUNT 
—  ANCIENT  FORTIFICATIONS  —  THE  MOUNT  FORMERLY 
THE  SITE  OF  A  STRONG  HlLL  ClTY  —  ANTIQUARIAN  DIG- 
GINGS—  OUR  MANNER  OF  LIVING  ON  THE  MOUNT  — 
THE  CHIMNEY — INSCRIPTIONS — TAPESTRY — A  SERE- 
NADE TO  THE  ANTIQUARY  —  THE  AUTHOR'S  FIRST  VISIT 
TO  THE  MOUNT. 

A  ND  now,  whilst  Pauchard  is  cooking  our 
*"*  dinner,  let  me  take  this  opportunity  of 
explaining  why  we  are  here  at  all,  —  why  the 
huts  and  the  cottages  are  here.  It  is  not 
simply  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  an  exten- 
sive prospect  that  the  Antiquary  climbs  the 
Mount  once  a  week  throughout  the  summer, 
and  every  summer,  year  after  year.  The 
beautiful  Mount  is  a  delightful  place  to  visit, 
but  an  occasional  excursion  would  suffice  to 
keep  its  beauties  in  the  memory.  Evidently 
there  must  be  another  reason  for  the  Anti- 
quary's singular  persistence. 

Yes,  there   is   a   reason.       Far   below   the 
cottage,   a  great   rampart   encircles   the   hill 


42  The  Mount. 

like  a  belt;  a  rampart  not  merely  traceable 
by  the  eye  of  a  keen-sighted  Antiquary,  but 
in  many  parts  as  visible,  and  as  large,  as  a 
modern  railway  embankment  This  rampart 
is  about  four  miles  in  circuit,  and  the  whole 
of  the  space  within  it  was  occupied,  before 
the  Roman  invasion  of  Gaul,  by  a  strong  hill 
city.  Now  the  work  that  my  friend  has  been 
pursuing  here  for  the  last  eight  years  is  the 
investigation  of  this  city  by  means  of  the 
pickaxe  and  the  spade.  He  has  a  little  body 
of  laborers  under  him,  who  go  on  steadily 
from  spring  to  autumn,  and  when  he  en- 
camped here  at  first  it  was  for  the  conve- 
nience of  superintending  them  and  directing 
the  work  better  than  he  could  by  occasional 
visits.  The  work  has  been  very  fruitful,  and 
is  pursued  in  the  most  systematic  manner. 
At  every  new  start  a  deep  trench  is  dug  from 
the  rampart  towards  the  centre  of  the  city, 
and  whenever  the  workmen  come  upon  a 
building  they  go  round  it  and  isolate  it  com- 
pletely. More  than  two  hundred  buildings, 
for  the  most  part  Gaulish  houses,  have  been 
discovered  and  cleared  in  this  manner,  and 
whilst  the  men  were  doing  this  they  found  a 
great  quantity  of  portable  objects,  such  as 


The  Mount.  43 

coins,  pottery,  jewelry,  etc.,  which  are  now 
lodged  in  the  Museum  of  St.  Germain,  for 
the  most  part,  though  a  selection  from  them 
remains  in  the  possession  of  my  friend  the 
Antiquary  himself.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  imagine  a  task  more  congenial,  for  a  man 
of  his  special  tastes  and  culture,  than  this 
great  labor  of  exploring  a  buried  city  of  the 
mysterious  Gaulish  time,  and  his  perseverance 
has  been  fully  rewarded.  The  diggings  of 
each  year,  in  consequence  of  an  agreement 
with  the  owner  of  the  property,  have  to  be 
filled  up  with  earth  again  in  the  autumn,  so 
that  the  casual  visitor,  especially  if  he  comes 
early  in  the  summer,  inevitably  receives  an 
impression  that  very  little  has  been  done.  But 
he  who  has  followed  the  work  year  by  year,  as 
I  have,  can  well  understand  how  attractive  it 
must  be  to  a  thoroughly  accomplished  anti- 
quary, who  pursues  it  with  a  clear  knowledge 
of  what  the  soil  has  yielded,  and  may  be  ex- 
pected still  to  yield.  At  first,  when  I  heard, 
after  a  particularly  successful  season,  that  all 
the  buildings  were  to  be  buried  again  after 
their  temporary  disinterment,  it  seemed  to 
me  a  lamentable  necessity;  but  the  Antiquary 
soon  convinced  me  that  the  interests  of  knowl- 


44  The  Mount. 

edge  and  those  of  the  owner  of  the  land  were 
identical  in  this,  for  the  reinterment  of  the 
buildings  was  the  only  sure  guaranty  of  their 
preservation  for  a  distant  future.  Even  the 
effect  of  the  weather  upon  the  uncemented 
Gaulish  walls — for  the  Gauls  only  used  clay 
for  mortar  —  would  in  a  few  years  reduce 
their  houses  to  mere  indistinguishable  heaps, 
whilst  all  the  hewn  stones  of  the  later  Roman 
dwellings  would  certainly  be  carried  away  by 
the  peasants,  if  left  exposed  to  their  unhis- 
torical  feelings  of  admiration. 

The  life  on  the  Mount  has  quite  a  peculiar 
charm  for  me,  which  I  would  convey  to  the 
reader  if  it  were  only  possible.  There  is  a 
constant  interest  in  the  excavations,  for  almost 
every  hour  brings  something  curious  to  light, 
and  if  we  are  absent  for  a  day  there  is  sure  to 
be  a  small  collection  of  curiosities  awaiting 
our  return  in  the  evening.  It  is  impossible 
to  imagine  a  more  agreeable  host  than  my 
friend  the  Antiquary,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
perhaps  to  find  a  guest  more  easily  satisfied,  as 
for  luxuries,  than  I  am  ;  indeed,  to  confess  the 
truth,  the  very  roughness  and  simplicity  of 
our  existence  on  the  Mount  are  profoundly 
agreeable  to  my  feelings,  just  as  a  rough  towel 


The  Mount.  45 

is  agreeable  to  my  skin.  The  sort  of  refine- 
ment which  is  represented  by  carpets  and 
French  polish  is  in  my  opinion  rather  irritat- 
ing than  agreeable,  and  if  a  certain  yachtsman 
whose  cabin  is  furnished  in  blue  and  white 
satin  were  to  make  me  a  present  of  his  craft, 
no  feelings  of  gratitude  would  be  strong 
enough  to  make  me  endure  such  upholstery  a 
day.  On  the  Mount  we  have  no  such  imped- 
iments to  true  comfort,  and  I  am  happy  to 
say,  too,  that  Pauchard  is  not  one  of  those 
terrible  French  cooks  who  serve  three  times 
as  many  dishes  as  an  Englishman  requires. 
He  gives  us  enough,  but  not  too  much,  which 
is  the  perfect  art  of  making  dinner  agreeable. 
The  very  things  upon  the  table  belong  to  the 
place,  and  are  in  keeping  with  the  purpose  of 
the  Antiquary's  sojourn  here.  The  water  jugs 
and  wine  bottles  are  set  upon  fragments  of 
Gaulish  pottery  by  way  of  table  mats,  and 
when  we  eat  boiled  eggs  our  egg  cups  are 
broken  necks  of  amphorae.  The  chimney- 
piece  is  made  of  three  stones  taken  from  a 
Gaulish  house,  and  the  latest  chisel-mark  upon 
them  is  anterior  to  the  time  of  Caesar.  The 
side  pieces  are  great  slabs  of  granite,  but  the 
entablature  is  a  thick  piece  of  white  stone 


46  The  Mount. 

with  two  sockets  sunk  in  it  at  a  little  distance 
from  the  ends.  It  was  the  sacred  white 
threshold  stone  of  the  Gaulish  dwelling,  and 
those  two  sockets  were  made  to  receive  the 
upright  posts  of  wood.  Although  we  are  in 
June,  and  a  Burgundy  June,  my  host  has  a 
great  fire  in  the  chimney  every  evening  to 
remove  any  remains  of  winter  damp  that  may 
linger  about  the  room.  Firewood  is  a  luxury 
of  which  the  supply  is  practically  unlimited 
on  the  Beuvray,  for  we  are  surrounded  by  the 
dense  forest,  and  whenever  the  weather  is 
chilly,  as  it  often  is  at  that  height  in  the  even- 
ing, we  make  fires  that  would  astonish  a  Pa- 
risian. When  the  strange  rude  chimney  is 
filled  with  blazing  logs,  and  lighted  by  their 
glare,  it  looks  like  a  Druid  temple  illuminated 
by  the  flames  of  a  sacrifice. 

The  walls  of  the  room,  as  I  said,  are  covered 
with  rough  mortar,  yet  artists  and  scholars 
who  have  visited  the  place  have  amused  their 
leisure  in  covering  them  with  sketches  and 
inscriptions. 

The  master  of  the  house  has  himself  writ- 
ten above  the  chimney-piece,  in  large  Greek 
letters, 

'EIPH'NH, 


The  Mount.  47 

which  is  his  way  of  saying  "  Pax  vobiscum  " 
to  his  guests;  and  truly  here  is  peace,  the 
peace  of  loving  kindness  and  good  will, 
the  peace,  too,  of  beautiful  nature,  far  from 
the  noise  of  cities. 

Another  wall  is  entirely  covered  with 
mediaeval  tapestry,  a  forest  scene  with  quaintly 
costumed  figures.  This  is  the  only  luxury 
about  the  place,  but  it  is  not  Philistine  luxury, 
—  Philistinism  would  have  begun  by  putting 
the  tapestry  on  the  floor,  had  it  possessed  such 
a  thing.  Those  strange  figures  and  that  dark 
green  foliage  glimmer  mysteriously  in  the 
glow  of  the  firelight,  and  we  feel  that  they  are 
with  us  when  scarcely  looking  at  them  directly. 
It  suits  the  Antiquary's  comprehensive  interest 
in  the  past  to  have  the  middle  ages  represented 
here  along  with  times  of  far  higher  antiquity. 

His  too  great  indulgence  has  permitted  a 
good  deal  of  rough  sketching  on  the  other 
walls.  For  example,  there  is  a  big  charcoal 
drawing,  of  which  I  am  not  the  author,  repre- 
senting my  arrival  here, 

"Once  upon  a  midnight  dreary," 
with  two  companions  and  my  faithful  Cocotte, 
who  is  turned  into  a  sumpter  horse  for  the 
occasion,   and    laden   with   all   our   baggage. 


48  The  Mount. 

The  artist  has  rather  abused  his  permission 
to  blacken  the  wall  with  charcoal,  but  to 
relieve  the  general  blackness  he  has  taken 
the  liberty,  or  rather  license,  of  introducing  a 
moon  that  was  not  visible  at  all  when  the  inci- 
dent happened.  This  may,  however,  be  per- 
mitted to  him  as  a  compensation  for  what  lay 
entirely  beyond  his  power,  and  was  therefore 
of  necessity  omitted.  The  fact  is,  that  as  on 
that  occasion  we  arrived  very  late,  —  that  is  to 
say,  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  —  the  Anti- 
quary was  asleep  in  one  of  the  wooden  huts, 
and  Pauchard  was  asleep  in  the  other.  I  had 
foreseen  this  and  planned  nothing  less  than  a 
serenade,  which  we  practised  diligently  in  the 
wood  till  we  could  sing  it  tolerably  in  tune. 
The  serenade  I  chose  for  the  occasion  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly beautiful  one  :  the  music  is  perfect 
serenader's  music,  with  the  true  poetical  pas- 
sionate rising  and  falling  of  the  voice,  like  the 
sighing  of  the  wind,  and  to  hear  it  well  sung 
in  the  South  of  France,  as  I  first  heard  it, 
with  a  guitar,  carries  you  to  Granada  and  the 
Alhambra  at  once  and  plunges  you  in  a  dream 
of  passion,  moonlight,  and  a  balcony.  It  was 
certainly  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  the  Anti- 
quary had  been  addressed  as  a  charming  girl  of 


The  Motint.  49 

Granada.  However,  we  managed  to  keep 
grave  enough  to  sing  our  parts  in  tune,  and 
sang  with  great  strength  in  the  fortissimos 
to  awaken  the  sleeper,  and  equal  softness  in 
the  pianissimos  to  soothe  him  again  :  — 

"  Charmante  fille  de  Grenade, 
A  mes  accents  reveille  toi! 
N'entends-tu  pas  la  se"re'nade? 
C'est  moi,  c'est  moi,  c'est  moi! 
Oui !  c'est  moi,  ton  amant  fidele, 
Ton  Lorenzo,  qui  chante  ici, 
Mais  tu  parais,  ma  toute  belle. 

Merci  !     Merci ! 

Tra  la  la,  tra  la  la  la  la  la,  tra  la  la  la  la, 
la  la  la,  la  la  la"  etc. 

The  Antiquary  first  began  to  dream  he  was 
at  the  Opera,  then  gradually  awoke  in  the 
darkness  of  his  hut;  but  the  music,  still  per- 
sisting, produced  the  strangest  effect  upon  his 
mind.  "  Am  I  still  dreaming?"  he  thought, 
"or  can  there  be  really  music  like  this  in  the 
wild  woods  of  the  Beuvray  ? "  Then  he 
opened  the  door  of  his  hut  and  looked  out 
upon  us.  Pauchard  turned  out,  too,  and  pre- 
pared us  a  supper,  after  which  we  sat  talking 
and  smoking  for  an  hour  or  two  before  going 
to  bed,  our  good-natured  host  being  perfectly 
delighted  by  his  musical  awakening.  As  for 


50  The  Moimt. 

Pauchard,  he  was  most  flattering  in  his  eulo- 
gium  of  our  music,  and  prepared  our  supper 
with  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  convinced  that 
we  had  fully  deserved  it. 

It  has  happened  to  me  more  than  once  to 
drop  in  upon  the  Antiquary  quite  unexpect- 
edly in  the  late  evening,  when  he  was  sitting 
alone,  writing  the  record  of  his  discoveries.  I 
shall  always  pleasantly  remember  my  first 
visit  to  the  Mount,  on  foot,  with  a  knapsack 
and  staff,  alone.  It  was  late  twilight  when 
I  got  to  the  summit,  and  the  difficulty  was 
to  find  the  Antiquary's  hut,  for  his  encamp- 
ment consisted  of  a  single  hut  at  that  time, 
but  by  a  strange  mixture  of  reasoning  and 
good  luck  I  went  straight  to  the  nook  where 
it  lay  hidden.  Much  of  the  happiness  of  the 
old  camp  in  the  Highlands  came  back  to  me 
that  evening,  and  the  solitary  hut  on  the  hill- 
top surrounded  by  vast  forests,  with  loaded 
revolvers  hanging  on  the  walls,  had  a  romantic 
interest  that  the  cottage  will  never  rival. 
Besides,  1  believed  then  in  the  solitude  of 
the  Beuvray,  but  have  since  discovered  that 
there  is  no  place  in  the  neighborhood  where 
you  are  less  likely  to  enjoy  a  day  of  privacy. 
However,  we  have  it  to  ourselves  at  night. 


The  Mount.  51 


CHAPTER   IV. 

OUR  CUSTOM  OF  TAKING  A  WALK  AT  MIDNIGHT — THE 
PLATEAU  OF  THE  BEUVRAY  —  THE  ANTIQUARY  BUILDS 
AN  ORATORY  —  THE  MAY  FAIR  ON  THE  BEUVRAY  — 
TOURNAMENTS  HELD  THERE  —  TRADITIONS  OF  ROMAN 
WARFARE  AMONGST  THE  PEASANTRY  —  PHANTOM  OF 
A  WHITE  HORSE  —  THE  PHANTOM  HUNTER  AND 
HOUNDS  —  MONASTERY  ON  THE  BEUVRAY — OUR  HAB- 
ITS ON  THE  MOUNT — MONT  BLANC  SEEN  AT  SUN- 
RISE, 157  MILES  OFF  —  VIEWS  FROM  MOUNTAINS  AT 
SUNRISE. 

T  TOW  firmly  and  insensibly  particular  cus- 
toms establish  themselves  in  particular 
situations  !  The  Antiquary  and  I  have  a  fixed 
habit  of  taking  a  walk  on  the  summit  of  the 
Mount  at  midnight.  We  never  made  a  rule 
of  this  consciously,  but  the  habit  has  formed 
itself  from  circumstances.  We  sit  talking 
after  dinner  till  it  is  near  midnight,  and  then 
the  cottage  has  to  be  arranged  as  a  bedroom 
for  one  of  us  ;  so,  whilst  Pauchard  is  busy  with 
this  work,  we  leave  the  field  clear  for  him,  and 
go  out.  The  cottage  is  within  a  hundred 
yards  of  the  summit,  and  the  night  air  that 


52  The  Mount. 

blows  over  it  is  cool  and  refreshing.  Few 
places  that  I  have  ever  visited  are  so  impres- 
sive as  the  Mount  at  midnight.  The  ground 
on  the  top  is  nearly  flat  for  the  space  of  two 
or  three  acres,  and  the  table-land  is  luckily 
almost  clear  of  trees  except  a  few  glorious 
beeches  that  have  crowned  it  for  a  thousand 
years.  The  sides  slope  down  precipitously  so 
that  their  thick  woods  do  not  impede  the  view, 
for  the  tops  of  the  trees  are  below  us.  The 
vast  prospect,  extending  when  the  air  is  clear 
from  Mont  Blanc  to  the  Loire,  is  vague  and 
misty  under  the  moonlight,  but  we  can  make 
out  some  of  the  details  nevertheless,  as  you 
can  in  a  Turner  landscape ;  we  can  recognize 
the  tower-capped  height  of  Touleur,  the  castled 
crag  of  La  Roche  Millay,  lofty  themselves,  yet 
a  thousand  feet  below  us,  and  we  can  at  least 
determine  the  situation  of  many  a  hamlet  and 
village  that  lie  shrouded  by  the  valley  mist. 
Our  geography  is  greatly  aided  by  two  small 
lakes,  for  water  is  always  recognizable  even  in 
misty  moonlight,  and  we  can  see  these  lakes 
quite  plainly  when  all  the  earth  seems  scarcely 
more  definite  or  substantial  than  an  exhala- 
tion. One  night  it  occurred  to  me  that,  from 
the  situation  of  the  moon,  she  would  appear 


The  Mount.  53 

reflected  in  one  of  these  lakes  from  a  certain 
point  upon  the  hill,  so  I  took  the  Antiquary 
there,  and  we  beheld  for  the  first  and  only 
time  one  of  the  most  singular  effects  imagi- 
nable. Absolutely  nothing  on  the  earth  was 
visible  except  that  distant  lake.  It  was 
rippled  by  a  light  breeze,  and  the  surface, 
catching  the  moon's  reflection,  appeared  like 
a  sheet  of  golden  fire  in  an  unfathomable 
abyss  of  space. 

On  the  little  plateau  of  the  Beuvray  there 
is  the  site  of  an  ancient  temple,  which  I  exam- 
ined in  detail  when  it  was  laid  bare  in  the 
course  of  the  excavations,  and  within  the 
foundations  of  this  temple  stood,  in  a  later 
age,  the  walls  of  a  little  Christian  church,  with 
the  round  apse  of  the  Romanesque  architec- 
ture. Then  the  church  disappeared,  and  a 
chapel  or  oratory  was  built  at  the  east  end  of 
it,  dedicated  to  Saint  Martin.  Afterwards 
the  oratory  also  disappeared,  and  now  the 
Antiquary  is  building  a  new  one  exactly 
within  the  apse  of  the  Christian  Church.  He 
and  his  architect  have  spared  no  effort  to 
make  this  little  structure  as  permanent  as 
human  work  can  ever  be.  It  is  built  entirely 
of  large  blocks  of  granite,  and  not  only  the 


54  The  Mount. 

walls,  but  also  the  roof  and  the  floor,  are  of 
this  enduring  material.  The  architecture  is 
very  simple,  Romanesque  in  principle  but 
without  any  ornament  whatever,  and  the  whole 
structure  consists  of  nothing  but  a  small  apse, 
a  tiny  space  representing  the  choir  before  the 
apse,  and  an  open  porch  as  wide  as  the  whole 
edifice,  with  an  arch  supported  by  simple 
square  pillars.  The  altar  is  to  be  very  simple 
also,  a  slab  of  massive  stone,  and  the  candle- 
sticks will  be  of  substantial  iron,  fixed  in  their 
place  in  the  stone.  Over  the  altar  there  is  to 
be  a  stone  altar-piece  representing  a  legend 
about  Saint  Martin,  which  the  reader  may 
never  have  heard.  The  legend  says  that 
Christ  in  Heaven  appeared  once  with  a  poor 
tattered  garment  that  covered  half  his  person, 
when  an  Apostle  asked  the  reason,  and  Christ 
answered,  "  Martin  hath  clothed  me  so,"  for 
Martin  had  given  half  his  garment  to  one  of 
Christ's  poor  on  earth.  There  is  already  a 
substantial  cross  of  granite  not  far  from  the 
new  oratory,  and  on  the  pedestal  of  the  cross 
is  a  small  bas-relief  representing  the  entry  of 
Saint  Martin  into  Amiens,  where  also  he  per- 
formed a  famous  act  of  charity.  So  far  as 
anything  can  be  accepted  as  historical  in  the 


The  Mount.  55 

life  of  so  famous  a  saint,  it  does  appear  cer- 
tain that  he  preached  in  these  parts  and  on 
this  spot.  For,  solitary  as  may  be  the  sum- 
mit of  the  Beuvray  at  midnight,  and  high  as 
it  is  above  the  level  of  the  surrounding  coun- 
try, the  place  has  been  frequented  by  multi- 
tudes, on  certain  occasions,  ever  since  the  old 
Gaulish  times,  when  a  multitude  lived  there 
permanently. 

Every  year,  down  to  the  present  year,  a  fair 
has  been  held  here  on  the  first  Wednesday 
in  May  from  the  Pagan  days,  when  the  mer- 
chants came  to  sacrifice  to  Maia,  and  to  Mer- 
cury her  son,  so  that  the  month  was  Maia's 
month,  and  the. day  was  Mercury's  day.  And 
if  we  could  only  witness  those  successive  first 
Wednesdays  in  May  as  they  have  been  kept 
on  the  summit  of  the  Beuvray  for  the  last  two 
thousand  years,  we  should  witness  the  slow 
transitions  of  humanity  from  those  ancient 
times  to  ours,  we  should  watch  the  gradual 
change  of  costume  and  of  usage,  we  should 
hear  the  change  of  speech.  But  if  I  might 
not  witness  the  slow  vicissitudes  of  two  thou- 
sand Mays  gone  by,  if  I  might  choose  one  May 
only  amongst  them  all,  my  choice  would  soon 
be  fixed.  I  would  have  it  in  the  middle  ages 


56  The  Mount. 

at  the  time  when  they  held  a  tournament  here 
on  the  hilltop,  and  the  great  Baron  of  La 
Roche  Millay  rode  up  from  his  castle,  clothed 
in  complete  steel,  and  met  here  many  a  proud 
count  and  baron,  each  with  his  train  of  vas- 
sals. Of  all  places  in  the  world  to  choose  for 
a  tournament,  the  crest  of  a  mountain  is  the 
most  singular  and  the  most  romantic.  It  is 
like  the  meeting  of  ghostly  warriors  in  the 
clouds,  and  it  does  not  require  any  great 
stretch  of  imagination,  when  one  is  alone  on 
this  crest  at  midnight,  under  the  dim  light  of 
a  waning  moon,  to  fancy  the  knights  in  armor 
careering  over  their  old  tournament  ground 
once  more,  and  then  leaping  over  the  pre- 
cipitous edge  to  vanish  in  misty  air.  The 
peasantry  of  the  neighboring  villages  have 
preserved  a  memory  of  shadowy  horsemen  in 
their  superstitions,  and  few  are  the  peasants 
who  would  care  or  dare  to  accompany  us  in 
our  midnight  ramble  over  this  haunted  ground. 
But  their  traditions  seem  rather  to  point 
to  the  times  of  Roman  warfare  than  of  Gothic 
feast  and  tournament.  They  tell  you  of  a 
white  horse  that  gallops  over  the  hill's  crest 
at  midnight,  and  of  a  loud  voice  commanding 
ghostly  legions  in  Latin.  Now  when  you 


The  Mount.  57 

reflect  that  these  villagers  have  no  historical 
literature  whatever,  nothing  but  oral  traditions 
from  one  generation  to  another,  does  it  not 
seem  rather  wonderful  that  they  should  have 
preserved  this  memory  of  the  Roman  invasion  ? 
They  have  also  kept  a  certain  number  of  Latin 
words  of  command.  I  know  that  one  of  them, 
on  meeting  an  animal  in  the  night  that  fright- 
ened him,  exclaimed,  "  Horror!  Terror!" — 
pure  Latin  as  one  could  wish,  —  and  it  appears 
that  he  regarded  these  words  as  a  species  of 
exorcism,  yet  they  are  not  words  of  Catholic 
exorcism  certainly,  but  an  exclamation  of  fear 
and  astonishment  natural  enough  in  a  Roman. 
Strangely  enough  that  superstition  about  the 
white  horse  of  the  Beuvray,  which  has  made 
many  a  rustic  quake  with  fear  when  belated 
upon  the  hill,  has  been  confirmed  of  late,  to 
the  eye  at  least,  if  not  to  the  critical  intelli- 
gence. A  white  horse  has  often  been  seen 
both  by  Pauchard  and  the  Antiquary,  but, 
unfortunately  for  the  effect  of  their  testimony, 
I  am  bound  to  add  that  it  was  a  living  one. 

The  phantom  war-horse  and  loud-voiced 
Latin-speaking  phantom  commander  are  not, 
however,  the  only  ghosts  that  haunt  the  Mount 
and  the  forest.  In  the  middle  ages  there  dwelt 


58  The  Mount. 

a  certain  seigneur  in  the  castle  whose  ruins  are 
still  visible  on  the  rocky  peak  of  Touleur,  and 
his  custom  was  to  hunt  over  the  Beuvray 
with  his  dogs.  He  hunts  there  still,  in  the 
night-time,  and  still  the  peasants  affirm  that 
the  cry  of  his  dogs  and  the  sound  of  his  horn 
and  voice  may  be  heard  above  the  noise  of 
the  winds.  So  seriously  and  earnestly  do  they 
believe  this,  that  a  gamekeeper  at  La  Roche 
Millay,  perfectly  well  known  to  the  Antiquary, 
has  gone  night  after  night  over  the  mountain 
in  order  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  phantom 
hunter  and  his  hounds  ;  but  he  says,  quite 
gravely,  that  although  he  has  heard  them 
many  a  time,  and  walked  after  them  many  a 
league,  he  has  never  yet  been  able  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  them.  Evidently  this  must  be  a 
version  of  the  well  known  Northern  supersti- 
tion of  the  Gabriel  Ratchets,  or  Gabble  Raches, 
but  in  this  instance  firmly  localized  by  attach- 
ing it  to  the  name  of  a  definite  baron  hunting 
over  a  definite  hunting-ground.  The  Gabriel 
Ratchets  are  phantoms  that  hunt  in  the  air, 
and  pass  over  your  head  in  the  late  evening 
or  night,  when  you  hear,  but  never  can  see 
them  ;  and  the  origin  of  this  superstition  is 
supposed  to  be  simply  the  flight  of  large  mi- 


Mount.  59 


gratory  birds,  —  wild  swans,  perhaps,  or  geese. 
The  phantom  hunter  of  Touleur  is,  however, 
believed  to  hunt  on  the  ground,  in  the  forest 
of  the  Beuvray,  and  it  is  believed,  too,  that 
any  one  who  met  him  would  see  him  and  his 
hounds,  as  if  they  were  in  the  flesh.  The 
romance  of  this  legend  is  in  this  instance 
greatly  heightened  by  the  romantic  scenery 
where  it  is  placed.  The  ruined  castle  of  Tou- 
leur is  perched  upon  the  summit  of  a  beauti- 
ful wooded  hill  with  a  rocky  crest,  between 
which  and  the  Beuvray  lies  a  valley  of  well 
watered  pastures,  and  the  side  of  the  Beuvray 
which  is  opposite  Touleur  is  hollowed  into  a 
deep  gorge  by  which  the  ghostly  hunter  must 
ascend.  There  is  a  legend,  too,  that  Saint 
Martin  leaped  over  this  wide  and  deep  ravine 
of  Malvaux  on  his  donkey,  and  arrived  on  a 
hard  rock  which  was  indented  by  the  donkey's 
hoofs  when  it  descended.  The  peasants  be- 
lieve this  sincerely,  and  show  the  ass's  hoof- 
mark  on  the  rock.  Of  course  there  is  a 
reason  for  this  extraordinary  feat.  In  the  year 
376,  the  saint  came  to  the  Beuvray  to  preach 
against  the  Pagan  worship  which  was  still  cel- 
ebrated there,  and  overthrew  the  altars  of  the 
ancient  gods  ;  but  when  the  deed  was  accom- 


60  The  Mount. 

plished  the  incensed  Pagans  were  still  strong 
enough  to  put  the  saint  to  flight,  and  his  ass 
took  this  miraculous  leap  to  save  him.  The 
Christian  traditions  of  the  Beuvray  do  not 
end  here,  for  in  the  fourteenth  century  a  mon- 
astery was  built  on  the  opposite  slope  of  the 
Mount,  and  fortified.  The  place,  however, 
cannot  have  been  sufficiently  strong  to  resist 
a  military  force,  and  was  probably  only  forti- 
fied against  brigands,  for  it  was  sacked  and 
burnt  in  1570  by  an  army  of  Calvinists,  in 
their  passage  from  Autun  to  Moulins-Engil- 
bert,  and  so  little  remains  of  it  at  the  present 
day  that  it  would  be  difficult  even  to  make 
out  the  plan  of  its  foundations  without  ex- 
cavating. 

There  is  one  acknowledged  evil  in  our  life 
upon  the  Mount,  —  an  evil  which  it  would 
be  easy  to  remedy,  yet  which  circumstances 
appear  to  impose  upon  us,  —  and  that  is  insuf- 
ficiency of  sleep.  Although  perfectly  masters 
of  our  own  time,  the  Antiquary  and  I,  by  an 
illogical  combination  of  a  bad  habit  with  a 
good  one,  so  manage  matters  that  we  do  not 
get  sleep  enough  for  the  wants  of  our  bodily 
constitutions.  It  is  generally  half-past  one 
in  the  morning  when  we  return  from  our  mid- 


The  Mount.  61 

night  walk,  which  is  the  bad  habit,  —  and  we 
get  up  early,  which  is  the  good  habit,  —  but 
the  two  go  badly  together  and  after  a  few  days 
of  it  we  begin  to  look  dreamy  in  the  daytime, 
and  to  have  that  strange  feeling  of  unreality 
which  insufficiency  of  sleep  produces.  I  well 
remember,  on  one  occasion,  going  to  bed  at 
three  in  the  morning  and  getting  up  to  wash 
in  cold  spring  water  and  see  the  Mont  Blanc 
at  five.  The  cold  water  we  are  always  sure  of, 
but  we  are  not  always  so  sure  of  Mont  Blanc ; 
sometimes,  however,  the  range  of  his  aiguilles 
is  clearly  visible  at  sunrise,  and  occasionally 
but  more  rarely  at  sunset,  when  it  is  going  to 
rain.  The  distance  is  a  hundred  and  fifty  - 
seven  miles  as  the  crow  flies.  To  realize  the 
full  marvel  of  this,  let  the  reader  transfer  the 
same  distance  to  the  map  of  England.  It  is 
the  distance  from  London  to  Scarborough. 
Imagine  a  mass  of  rock  at  Scarborough  big 
enough  to  be  visible  from  London,  and  you 
have  an  accurate  measure  of  this  marvellous 
extent  of  prospect. 

It  is  rather  the  fashion  to  laugh  at  views 
from  mountains  at  sunrise,  because  tourists 
climb  a  hill  occasionally,  and  find  themselves 
surrounded  by  dense  mists ;  but  the  tradition 


62  The  Mount. 

that  sunrise  is  worth  seeing  from  a  high  moun- 
tain is  perfectly  well  founded,  for  this  is  one 
of  the  grandest  spectacles  on  the  earth.  We 
have  quite  a  habit  of  watching  it  from  the 
Beuvray,  which  accounts  for  our  early  rising. 
I  think  an  informed  mind  realizes  the  full 
grandeur  of  the  planetary  motion  better  on 
these  occasions  than  on  any  other,  and  to  my 
feeling  the  knowledge  of  that  sublime  reality 
is  incomparably  more  impressive  than  the 
most  imaginative  dreams  of  ancient  faith  or 
poetry.  To  believe  that  Apollo  is  driving  the 
solar  chariot  westward  in  the  heavens  does  not 
tax  our  powers  so  much  as  the  far  vaster  con- 
ception that  the  whole  of  the  human  race  is 
carried  eastward  to  the  sunshine  by  the  regu- 
lar, unfailing  motion  of  the  globe  that  \ve 
inhabit.  How  small  from  the  top  of  even  a 
little  mountain  do  men  and  their  labors 
appear  upon  the  earth,  and  how  even  a  little 
lifting  above  their  level  enables  us  to  think 
more  easily  of  the  globe  as  a  huge  material 
thing  that  exists  independently  of  the  prodi- 
gious masses  of  life  which  it  sustains  !  It  is 
only  in  rare  moments,  but  more  frequently  on 
mountain  tops  than  elsewhere,  that  we  think 
of  the  earth's  mass  in  any  conscious  way  what- 


The  Mount.  63 

ever;  but  on  the  Beuvray,  with  such  a  moun- 
tain as  Mont  Blanc  clear  with  its  serrated 
sharp  edge  against  the  eastern  sky,  and  such 
a  river  as  the  Loire  gleaming  in  the  western 
plain  through  which  it  flows  to  the  far  Atlantic, 
it  is  inevitable  that  our  ideas  should  become 
vaster  if  we  would  grasp  the  full  significance 
of  the  scene.  How  grand  is  the  silence  of 
the  mountains  when  the  night  shadow  is  still 
resting  on  the  plain,  and  only  the  crests  are 
caught  by  the  first  golden  light  of  the  morn- 
ing! Cool  breezes  blow  through  the  foliage 
of  the  ancient  beech  trees,  and  there  is  a 
delightful  freshness  in  this  clear,  high  atmos- 
phere that  we  shall  lose  when  the  sun  grows 
hot. 


64  The  Mount. 


CHAPTER  V. 

OUR  FIRST  BREAKFAST  —  PAUCHARD'S  SOUP  —  PEDES- 
TRIAN POWERS  OF  THE  ANTIQUARY  —  EXPLORATION 
OF  THE  MOUNT — THE  GAULISH  RAMPARTS  —  INTE- 
RIOR EARTHWORKS—  STRUCTURE  OF  A  GAULISH  WALL, 
AS  DESCRIBED  BY  CESAR,  CONFIRMED  BY  OUR  OBSER- 
VATIONS —  GAULISH  BLACKSMITH'S  SHOP  —  GAULISH 
ENAMELLER — SURPRISING  QUANTITY  OF  AMPHORAE  — 
ARRANGEMENT  OF  HOUSES  — LARGE  MANSION  —  NAME 
OF  THE  ANCIENT  CITY  —  MOST  PROBABLY  BIBRACTE  — 
REMARKABLE  DEFICIENCY  OF  CESAR'S  AS  A  MILITARY 
NARRATOR — POVERTY  OF  DESCRIPTION  IN  HIS  WRIT- 
INGS. 

T  F  we  were  inclined  to  go  to  sleep  on  our 
return  to  the  cottage,  there  would  be  a 
difficulty  due  to  the  industrious  alacrity  of 
Pauchard.  Beds  have  disappeared,  windows 
and  doors  are  open  for  ventilation,  the  board 
on  trestles  is  re-established,  and  a  hospitable 
board  it  is.  Then  come  two  great  basins  of 
capital  soup,  for  Pauchard  only  makes  one 
kind  of  soup,  except  on  Fridays,  and  by  long 
practice  he  makes  that  one  kind  inimitably 
well.  Our  days  on  the  Beuvray  are  not  spent 
in  lolling  on  the  grass  by  the  cool  fountains 


The  Mount.  65 

under  the  shady  trees,  so  we  need  a  good 
preparation  for  our  toils,  and  we  are  both 
agreed  that  soup  is  practically  the  best  because 
it  conveys  most  nourishment  into  the  system 
at  least  cost  to  the  digestive  powers.  After 
the  soup,  which  contains  a  substantial  quantity 
of  bread  and  vegetables,  the  Antiquary  gives 
directions  to  his  servant,  and  we  sally  forth  for 
our  morning  walk.  My  friend  is  a  terrible 
pedestrian,  and  it  is  necessary  to  be  rather 
cautious  in  setting  out  with  him.  "  Let  us 
take  a  little  turn,"  he  says,  and  if  you  follow 
without  settling  on  some  fixed  route  he  will 
lead  you  over  the  most  fatiguing  and  imprac- 
ticable ground  for  a  dozen  miles  without 
thinking  about  it,  after  which,  if  you  venture 
on  any  inquiry  or  remonstrance,  he  will  turn 
round  with  the  most  innocent,  surprised  look, 
and  say,  "  Mais,  vous  rietes  pas  fatigue  ?"  If 
from  pride  or  vanity  you  say  you  are  not 
tired,  he  will  go  on  quite  indefinitely,  but 
4f  you  frankly  confess  that  you  have  enough 
of  it,  then  he  will  only  lead  you  back  by  a 
worse  and  still  more  circuitous  route  than  that 
you  have  already  traversed,  in  order  to  show 
you  the  country,  or  some  stone  or  mound 
which  he  considers  interesting  from  the  anti- 


66  The  Mount. 

quarian  point  of  view.  He  is  little  and  thin, 
and  sixty  years  old,  but  one  of  the  best  pedes- 
trians I  ever  met  with,  especially  on  rough 
ground.  I  am  put  at  a  disadvantage  with  him 
in  one  respect :  he  can  bear  heat  like  an 
ostrich,  and  just  when  the  sun  flames  in  all 
his  fury  my  friend  feels  lightest  and  most 
youthful,  whereas  my  Northern  temperament 
has  an  objection  to  being  roasted.  With  a 
companion  his  walks  are  generally  moderate, 
because  the  companion  is  a  drag,  but  by  him- 
self, in  perfect  liberty,  without  any  restraint 
whatever,  he  goes  wonderful  distances.  For 
example,  I  know  that  he  set  out  one  morning 
from  his  own  house  with  the  simple  purpose 
of  taking  a  little  walk,  and  came  back  quietly 
to  dinner.  When  asked  where  he  had  been, 
he  mentioned  half  a  dozen  villages.  "  And 
did  you  never  make  use  of  any  kind  of  convey- 
ance?" He  answered  simply  that  he  had 
been  on  foot  the  whole  time,  and  yet  to  visit 
the  villages  he  mentioned  implied  a  walk  of 
forty  miles. 

A  thorough  exploration  of  the  Mount  is  a 
very  hard  day's  work  indeed,  and  visitors  who 
come  here  to  picnic  learn  very  little  about  it. 
There  are  twenty  miles  of  Gaulish  roads  in 


The  Mount.  67 

the  woods,  and  a  good  many  other  miles  of 
walking  along  ancient  ramparts  and  from  one 
interesting  point  to  another.  In  moderate 
walks,  still  rather  fatiguing  from  the  steepness 
of  the  ground,  it  takes  about  a  week  to  see 
everything  that  has  either  antiquarian  or  artis- 
tic interest.  Nothing  can  be  more  agreeable 
than  these  rambles  when  too  much  is  not 
crowded  into  each  day,  and  the  true  charm  of 
so  charming  a  place  is  not  to  be  realized  at 
once,  but  grows  upon  the  mind  gradually  by 
habit  and  acquaintance.  To  know  the  place 
properly,  one  ought  to  begin  with  a  careful 
study  of  the  ramparts,  and  this  is  not  easy,  for 
where  most  interesting  and  best  preserved 
they  are  often  buried  in  the  dense  forest.  In 
their  greatest  size  and  perfection  they  re- 
minded me  very  much  of  a  railway  embank- 
ment on  the  side  of  a  steep  hill,  being  quite 
as  large,  with  a  road  on  the  top,  too  hard  for 
trees  to  take  root  in  ;  covered  with  short  grass, 
in  other  parts  of  the  circumference  the  ram- 
parts were  of  much  less  importance,  but  always 
quite  distinctly  traceable.  Where  best  pre- 
served there  are  two  roads,  one  on  the  top  of 
the  earthwork  and  the  other  running  parallel 
to  it  at  the  base.  Just  on  the  crest  of  the 


68  The  Mount. 

Mount  there  is  also  an  inner  fortification  on 
the  west  side,  where  the  ground  is  not  nearly 
so  steep  as  on  the  eastern.  These  interior 
earthworks  probably  defended  a  citadel ;  they 
are  in  good  preservation,  but  do  not,  when  ex- 
cavated, present  any  traces  of  the  woodwork 
which  was  so  important  a  part  of  the  outer 
rampart,  or  true  wall  of  the  city.  The  struc- 
ture of  this  Gaulish  wall  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  things  about  the  place,  but  to 
understand  it  thoroughly  it  is  almost  essential 
to  have  been  present,  as  I  was,  when  a  por- 
tion of  the  wall  itself  was  carefully  dissected 
with  pickaxe  and  spade.  About  four  hundred 
yards  of  wall,  including  one  of  the  entrances 
to  the  city,  were  studiously  anatomized  in  this 
manner,  and  found  to  answer  accurately  to 
Caesar's  description  of  Avaricum,  in  the  Sev- 
enth Book  De  Bello  Gallico.  I  will  translate 
the  passage  here  :  — 

"  This  is  generally  the  form  of  all  Gaulish  walls. 
Straight  beams  all  in  one  length  are  placed  upon 
the  ground  at  equal  distances  of  two  feet;  these  are 
placed  inside  the  wall  and  covered  with  a  good  deal 
of  earth.  But  these  intervals  which  we  have  men- 
tioned are  faced  with  large  stones.  These  having 
been  placed  and  fastened  together,  another  course 


The  Mount.  69 

is  superadded,  the  same  interval  being  preserved, 
nor  do  the  beams  ever  touch  each  other,  but,  being 
separated  by  equal  spaces,  each  several  range  of 
beams  is  closely  sustained  with  a  course  of  stones 
between.  The  whole  of  the  work  is  thus  successively 
woven  together,  until  the  regular  height  of  the  ram- 
part is  attained.  On  the  one  hand  this  sort  of  work 
has  not  a  bad  appearance  with  its  variety  of  alter- 
nate beams  and  stones  which  keep  their  ranks  with 
straight  lines ;  on  the  other  hand  it  is  most  advan- 
tageous for  the  defence  of  cities,  since  the  stone 
protects  it  from  fire  and  the  wood  against  the  bat- 
tering-ram, the  wood  being  fixed  within  the  beams, 
generally  forty  feet  long,  and  is  not  to  be  either 
penetrated  or  disjointed." 

These  walls  have  been  very  fully  described 
and  illustrated  in  the  Life  of  Caesar  by  Napo- 
leon III.  Caesar's  description  is  clear  so  far 
as  its  brevity  permits,  yet  not  quite  perfectly 
clear.  The  long  beams  were  parallel  with  the 
course  of  the  wall  and  were  inside  it,  then  there 
were  upright  pieces  and  cross-pieces,  which 
were  fastened  by  large  iron  nails  to  the  long 
beams.  This  presented  a  series  of  rude  panels, 
which  were  backed  in  the  interior  with  earth, 
but  outwardly  faced  with  substantial  stone,  so 
that  the  wooden  framework  remained  visible, 
but  the  stone  facing  was  flush  with  it,  as  a 


yo  The  Mount. 

builder  would  say.  It  follows,  therefore,  that 
in  excavating  this  wall  the  Antiquary  might 
expect  to  find  traces  of  the  woodwork  that 
had  formed  part  of  it,  and  also  the  large  iron 
nails  that  fastened  the  beams  together.  I 
happened  to  be  present  some  years  ago  during 
this  very  interesting  part  of  the  excavations, 
and  everything  we  found  confirmed  what  was 
already  known  of  this  peculiar  system  of  con- 
struction. We  found  stonework  still  existing 
to  the  height  of  a  yard,  and  the  empty  places 
of  the  wooden  uprights  with  carbonized  wood 
always  at  the  bottom  of  them,  and  these  trous 
der  poutres,  as  the  Antiquary  called  them,  were 
at  such  regular  distances  that  he  could  easily, 
by  measurement,  predict  where  they  would  be 
found.  The  upright  stanchions  had  been  fixed 
in  the  hardened  earth,  but  the  matter  was  quite 
soft  in  the  holes  where  they  had  been  fixed,  so 
that,  by  a  simple  process  of  removing  stones 
and  soil,  the  holes  became  visible  at  once  in 
their  regular  order.  The  Antiquary  expected 
to  find  the  huge  nails  which  had  fastened  the 
cross-pieces,  and  in  that  he  was  not  disap- 
pointed, for  the  nails  were  still  sticking  up- 
right in  their  original  position,  though  the 
wood  had  decayed  around  them.  I  have  said 


The  Mount.  71 

that  the  part  of  the  wall  explored  included  one 
of  the  gates  of  the  city.  This  was  of  peculiar 
interest,  having  been  defended  with  especial 
care. 

The  wall  was  turned  inwards  by  two  elbows, 
so  that  there  was  a  narrow  lobby  or  passage 
to  be  got  through  before  the  enemy  could 
reach  the  interior.  Considerable  quantities 
of  burnt  wood  were  found  near  the  gateway, 
which  the  Antiquary  attributes  to  the  burn- 
ing of  wooden  towers  placed  to  defend  the 
entrance.  A  ditch  twelve  yards  wide  by  five 
deep  was  rich  in  such  things  as  coins,  brace- 
lets, ornaments  in  polished  stone,  broken 
hand-mills,  and  vases. 

Not  very  far  from  the  entrance,  and  just  by 
the  roadside  within  the  wall,  the  Antiquary 
was  lucky  enough  to  come  upon  a  Gaulish 
blacksmith's  shop,  with  abundant  evidence  of 
the  sort  of  labor  performed  there,  and  not 
much  farther  he  found  a  shop  that  had  been 
occupied  by  a  workman  of  a  higher  grade,  an 
enameller,  with  many  fragments  of  enamelled 
work  that  did  credit  to  the  skill  of  an  ajje  that 

o 

is  too  commonly  believed  to  have  been  in  a 
state  of  savagery.  I  remember  the  day  when, 
to  our  great  delight,  we  actually  found  part  of 


72  The  Mount. 

the  enameller's  bellows,  the  tube  of  which  had 
been  made  of  enduring  earthen-ware.  Many 
of  the  Gaulish  houses  were  in  a  remarkably 
good  state  of  preservation,  the  walls  being  still 
high,  and  the  floors  so  very  hard  that  the 
workmen  broke  their  pickaxes  upon  them. 
The  system  of  construction  with  upright  oak 
stanchions  had  been  followed  a  good  deal  in 
the  city  as  well  as  the  rampart,  and  the  hard 
floors  often  presented  soft  places  at  regular 
intervals  that  were  the  stanchion-holes  with 
carbonized  wood  in  them.  The  number  of 
amphora  found  in  these  places  was  wonder- 
ful. I  remember  how  a  single  laborer  dis- 
covered thirty  or  forty  of  them  in  one  spot,  all 
lying  close  together.  The  houses  were  much 
more  crowded  than  they  are  in  a  modern  city, 
and  if  the  reader  thinks  of  them  as  clusters 
of  cellars  with  thatched  roofs,  and  entrance 
through  the  roofs  by  ladders,  he  will  not  be 
far  wrong  for  a  great  many  of  them.  There 
were  some  better  dwellings,  but  chiefly  of  the 
Roman  time.  One  very  large  mansion  was 
discovered  quite  close  to  the  Antiquary's  own 
hut,  and  he  little  suspected  when  erecting  that 
humble  dwelling  that  he  had  chosen  for  the 
site  of  it  the  Belgravia  of  the  ancient  city. 


The  Mount.  73 

This  mansion  had  many  chambers  and  a  large 
bathroom  with  a  great  bath  in  perfect  condi- 
tion, built  of  fine  stones  as  well  dressed  as 
they  could  be.  A  good  sewer  passed  near  to 
the  house,  —  not  a  mere  drain,  but  a  sewer  big 
enough  for  a  man  to  walk  in,  —  and  there  were 
some  remnants  of  fluted  columns.  During 
all  these  diggings  the  usual  quantity  of  small 
objects  were  found  from  week  to  week,  and 
these  in  the  course  of  the  eight  years  that 
have  already  passed  would  have  filled  a  little 
museum  of  themselves.  Every  ancient  dwell- 
ing has  been  systematically  measured,  and 
drawn  to  scale  on  a  plan  of  the  whole  city. 

Now  the  question  is,  What  was  the  ancient 
name  of  this  Gaulish  city,  and  what  was  its 
place  in  history?  Did  Caesar  ever  visit  it? 

A  great  controversy  on  this  question  has 
raged  for  many  a  year,  and  if  I  were  to  go 
into  the  details  of  this  controversy  I  should 
easily  fill  a  volume  with  the  arguments  on 
each  side.  It  must  be  treated  very  summarily 
in  this  place.  My  friend  the  Antiquary  firmly 
believes  the  city  to  be  the  ancient  Bibracte, 
which  gives  intense  offence  to  many  inhabi- 
tants of  Autun  who  consider  that  he  is  robbing 
their  town  of  its  claim  to  prehistoric  antiquity, 


74  The  Mount. 

for  Autun  has  hitherto  very  generally  been 
assured  to  be  the  Bibracte  of  Caesar  and 
Strabo.  However,  my  friend  is  neither  the 
first  nor  the  only  one  to  hold  this  opinion 
about  Bibracte.  There  was  a  certain  juris- 
consult of  the  sixteenth  century  named  Guy 
Coquille,  who  wrote  upon  the  customs  of  the 
Nivernais,  and  quite  decidedly  fixed  Bibracte 
on  the  Beuvray.  He  settled  the  question  in 
twenty  lines.  In  the  next  century,  the  mat- 
ter was  taken  up  by  Adrien  de  Valois,  a 
geographer  who  advocated  the  same  opinion  ; 
then  came  a  writer  called  D'Anville  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  who  began  by  agreeing 
with  De  Valois,  but  not  having  material 
enough  for  evidence,  as  no  excavations  were 
made  at  that  time,  fell  back  upon  Autun  as 
the  most  probable  site  of  Bibracte ;  and  after 
him  the  question  was  held  to  be  quite  in 
favor  of  Autun,  so  that  nobody  argued  any 
more  upon  the  subject,  which  fell  into  "the 
deep  slumber  of  decided  opinion."  This 
silence  reigned  until  the  year  1856,  when  my 
friend  the  Antiquary  took  it  up  again.  His 
first  view  was  simply  the  opinion  generally 
received,  and,  like  most  other  inhabitants  of 
Autun,  he  knew  nothing  about  the  Beuvray; 


The  Mount.  75 

but  being  engaged  at  that  time  upon  a  work 
on  the  defensive  system  of  the  Romans,1  he 
heard  from  the  peasants  that  there  were  curi- 
ous ramparts  upon  the  Beuvray,  so  he  went 
and  really  looked  at  them.  After  the  visit 
he  returned  home,  convinced  that  he  was  in 
presence  of  a  great  archaeological  problem, 
and  proposed  to  the  Societe  Eduenne  the  idea 
of  making  an  accurate  map  of  these  fortifi- 
cations, which  was  executed  accordingly.  I 
may  just  observe,  by  way  of  parenthesis,  that 
the.  Antiquary's  powers  of  pedestrianism  went 
for  a  good  deal  in  his  rediscovery  of  Bibracte ; 
for  if  he  had  been  as  idle  as  many  of  his 
countrymen  are  he  would  not  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  go  round  the  ramparts,  a  thing  his 
critics  never  do  for  any  consideration. 

When  once  this  idea,  "  This  must  be  Bi- 
bracte," had  taken  root  in  the  Antiquary's 
mind,  it  naturally  gathered  to  itself  many  facts 
and  observations,  as  a  theory  always  does,  this 
being  the  advantage  of  holding  a  theory,  espe- 
cially when  the  validity  of  it  is  generally  denied. 
On  re-reading  Strabo  the  Antiquary  found 
that  he  called  Chalon  a  770X19  and  Bibracte  a 

1  Syst&me  ddfensif  des  Remains  dans  le  pays  Eduen. 
1856. 


7  6  The  Moinif. 

(j>povpiov,  which  sometimes  especially  means 
a  hill  fort,  and  always  implies  fortress  more 
than  770X19  does.  Caesar  called  Bibracte  an 
"  oppidum  longe  maximum  aeque  copiosissi- 
mum."  The  length  of  the  ramparts  answers 
to  the  first  half  of  this  description,  and  the 
productive  wealth  of  the  neighboring  country 
to  the  second.  With  reference  to  Caesar's 
descriptive  talent  I  here  permit  myself  the 
liberty  of  a  little  outspoken  criticism.  He 
has  been  immensely  praised,  and  over-praised, 
as  a  writer.  It  is  possible  that,  considered 
simply  as  a  narrator  of  military  events,  he 
may  excel  in  clearness  and  simplicity,  but  he 
was  a  singularly  poor  literary  artist.  His 
mind  appears  to  have  been  entirely  filled  up 
with  figures  (numbers  of  men  and  horses),  dis- 
tances, and  names>  and  he  was  so  bad  a  trav- 
eller as  to  suppose  that  names  were  enough, 
forgetting  that  they  have  a  meaning  only 
just  so  far  as  the  reader  is  already  aware  what 
is  meant  by  them.  For  example,  if  in  writing 
a  book  to  be  read  in  England  and  in  America 

O 

I  use  the  name  "  Paris  "  without  explanation, 
it  is  well,  because  everybody  knows  what  sort 
of  a  place  Paris  is,  but  if  I  use  the  name 
"  Montmoret  "  I  ought  to  explain  clearly  what 


The  Mount.  77 

sort  of  a  place  Montmoret  is  the  first  time  I 
use  the  word  —  after  that  the  word  may  stand 
alone.     Now,  suppose  that  in  this  book,  for 
instance,  the  word  Montmoret  were  to  occur 
several  times  without  explanation,  the  reader 
would  have  a  fair  right  to  complain  that  the 
author  did  not  understand  his  business.    Well, 
this  is  just  what  may  be  said  of  Caesar,  as  to 
his  writing — not  as  to  his  generalship.     He 
contented  himself  with  a  name,  and  yet  with- 
out asking  from  any  ancient  writer  such  de- 
tailed  description  as  is  common   in   modern 
works,  in  which  there  is  often  too  much  of 
it;  we  certainly  have  a  right  to  complain  that 
when  a  single  sentence  would  have  contained 
all    the   information  that   posterity  asks  for, 
Caesar,  who  could  so  easily  have  given  it,  is 
silent.     No  two  sites  for  a  city  can  be  more 
different   than   Autun  and   the  crest   of   the 
Beuvray.     Autun  is  on  a  rising  ground    be- 
tween a  river  and  a  range  of  hills,   divided 
from  the  hills  by  a  valley;  the  Beuvray  is  a 
great   isolated    mount   at   least   twelve    miles 
from  the  river.     If  the  site  of   Bibracte  was 
the  site  of  Autun,  Caesar  might  surely  have 
mentioned  the  river;  and  if  on  the  other  hand 
Bibracte  was  on  the  Beuvray,  he  might  have 


78  The  Mount. 

mentioned  the  hill.  One  can  hardly  imagine 
a  modern  traveller  —  any  Livingstone,  Speke, 
or  Palgrave  —  describing  the  country  in  a 
manner  so  careless  of  the  reader's  legitimate 
curiosity.  Caesar  seems  to  have  taken  little 
interest  in  physical  geography,  and  to  have 
been  entirely  absorbed  in  his  professional 
business  as  a  soldier.  Yet  if  we  consider 
him  simply  as  a  military  writer,  we  may 
reasonably  complain  of  his  laconism  even  in 
that  limited  capacity.  Rivers  and  mountains 
are  facts  of  military  importance,  besides  being 
interesting  to  landscape  painters.  Imagine, 
for  example,  a  modern  military  writer  telling 
of  the  campaign  in  Abyssinia  and  forgetting 
to  say  that  Magdala  was  on  a  hill,  or  of  the 
campaign  in  the  Ashantee  country  without 
mentioning  its  rivers !  Here  we  feel  the 
utility  of  the  modern  war-correspondent,  and 
we  regret  that  the  chronological  difficulty 
should  have  made  it  impossible  for  Caesar  to 
be  accompanied  by  a  clever  professional  writer 
for  the  Daily  News.  We  should  have  known 
all  about  Bibracte  then.  As  it  is,  we  have 
little  in  Caesar  toA  except  the  distance  of 
Bibracte  from  a  battle-field ;  but  as  he  did 
not  describe  the  battle-field  either,  the  con- 


The  Mount.  79 

troversialists  on  opposite  sides  put  it  in 
different  places,  so  as  to  be  at  the  proper 
Distance  from  what  they  suppose  to  have 
>  en  Bibracte.  If  Caesar  had  been  a  good 
topographer,  antiquaries  would  have  lost 
many  of  the  pleasures  of  debate,  and  my 
friend  the  Antiquary  would  probably  have 
had  nothing  to  discover. 


8o  The  Mount. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL  INTEREST  OF  A  RAILWAY-CUTTING  — 
THE  LATE  ARCHBISHOP  OF  RHEIMS  —  NAPOLEON  III. 
—  His  SUBSIDY  FOR  THE  EXCAVATIONS  ON  THE 
MOUNT — LOCAL  SPITE  AND  ANIMOSITY  —  BAD  FAITH 
AND  INTENSE  PREJUDICE  —  THE  GREAT  WATER  AR- 
GUMENT—  ABUNDANCE  OF  WATER  ON  THE  BEUVRAY  — 
LETTERS  AGAINST  THE  ANTIQUARY  ADDRESSED  TO  GREAT 
PERSONAGES  —  PRINCE  BISMARCK  —  THE  INFLICTION 
OF  TOURISTS  —  ASTONISHING  INDISCRETION  OF  FASH- 
IONABLE TOURISTS  —  CONDUCT  OF  A  PARTY  OF  NO- 
BILITY —  MISBEHAVIOR  OF  TWO  TITLED  LADIES  — 
THE  COUNT  OF  PARIS. 

CURIOUSLY  enough,  whilst  the  Antiquary 
^-^  was  making  his  intentional  excavations 
on  the  Beuvray,  a  railway  company,  without 
archaeological  intentions,  was  doing  work  of 
much  archaeological  interest  at  Autun,  and 
of  a  kind  directly  affecting  this  very  question 
about  the  situation  of  Bibracte.  A  cutting 
for  the  line  from  Autun  to  Gantenay  trav- 
ersed Autun  in  its  whole  breadth,  and  down  to 
a  depth  of  six  feet  below  the  most  ancient 
vestiges  of  human  habitation.  No  trace  of 
man's  labors  was  found  below  the  streets  laid 
out  by  Augustus,  which  are  in  straight  lines, 


The  Moiint.  81 

as  regular  as  a  chess-board,  forming  exact 
squares  of  one  hundred  and  seven  metres  on 
every  side.  This  extreme  regularity  of  the 
Roman  town,  like  that  of  some  new  American 
city  erected  on  vacant  ground,  is  considered 
to  be  presumptive  evidence  that  no  Gaulish 
city  existed  on  the  spot  when  Augustus  laid 
out  his  streets ;  yet  even  if  such  a  city  had 
been  demolished  to  make  room  for  a  new 
one,  it  is  still  presumable  that  some  fragments 
of  it  would  have  remained  below  the  surface, 
so  that  excavation  would  have  revealed  Gaul- 
ish work  at  Autun  as  it  has  done  on  the 
Beuvray ;  yet  nothing  more  ancient  than 
Roman  work  has  ever  been  found  at  Autun, 
beneath  the  Roman  ways,  and  there  has 
never  been  any  material  evidence  that  the 
Augustan  city  was  erected  on  ground  pre- 
viously occupied. 

The  history  of  the  present  archaeological 
excavations  on  Mount  Beuvray  is  briefly  as 
follows.  Before  the  year  1857  some  work  of 
this  kind  had  been  begun  by  M.  Xavier-de- 
Garennes,  who  had  written  a  book  about  the 
Mount.  After  him,  the  owner  of  the  property 
—  Viscount  d'Aboville,  whose  name  may  be 
familiar  to  the  English  reader  as  one  of  the 


82  The  Mount. 

most  extreme  Legitimists  in  the  National 
Assembly  —  began  to  excavate  on  the  sum- 
mit. These  excavations  were  under  the  direc- 
tion of  M.  Bulliot,  who  is  identical  with  the 
Antiquary  of  these  pages.  Whilst  he  was 
busy  directing  M.  d'Aboville's  excavations 
the  late  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  an  old  friend 
of  his,  came  to  see.  The  Archbishop  was  a 
man  of  more  than  commonly  clear  intelli- 
gence, and  candid  enough  to  acknowledge  a 
mistake.  He  had  translated  the  orations  of 
the  Athenian  Eumenes,  and  in  his  notes  to 
these  had  found  occasion  to  mention  the 
Beuvray,  and  to  prove  satisfactorily  to  him- 
self that  the  notion  of  putting  Bibracte  there 
was  an  insult  to  common  sense ;  but  when  he 
had  seen  the  place  and  the  small  beginning 
of  excavation  which  had  been  accomplished 
at  that  time,  his  opinion  altered.  The  Arch- 
bishop dined  with  Napoleon  III.  at  the  camp 
of  Chalons,  and  told  him  what  he  had  seen, 
urgently  recommending  him  to  undertake 
diggings  in  order  to  settle  the  question  for 
the  Life  of  Caesar.  Then  my  friend  the 
Antiquary  got  a  letter  from  the  Emperor, 
inviting  him  to  an  audience,  went  to  the 
Tuileries  with  a  map  of  the  Mount  in  his 


The  Mount.  83 

pocket,  and  explained  to  his  Majesty  all  that 
was  already  known.  Napoleon  took  a  great 
interest  in  the  subject,  and  immediately  be- 
came a  convert  to  the  Antiquary's  opinion, 
which  he  expressed  as  his  own  in  the  Life  of 
Caesar;  but  a  more  important  practical  con- 
sequence of  this  interview  was  that  the  Em- 
peror undertook  excavations  at  his  private 
expense  and  confided  the  direction  of  them 
to  the  Antiquary.  His  subsidy  was  not  very 
large,  but  it  was  continued  year  after  year; 
and  as  every  franc  of  it  was  used  with  judg- 
ment, the  results  were  very  considerable.  It 
has  since  been  continued  by  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction.  This  assistance  from  the 
Government  accounts  for  the  transfer  of  all 
portable  finds  to  the  Museum  of  St.  Germains. 
Eight  long  summers  have  now  been  spent 
in  this  work  with  the  steadiness  and  regular- 

O 

ity  of  a  lucrative  business,  and  in  the  face  of 
much  local  ridicule  and  animosity.  The 
Antiquary  has  many  qualities  that  I  respect 
very  heartily  indeed,  but  I  respect  none  of 
them  more  than  his  persistent  moral  courage. 
Every  one  who  knows  what  the  provincial 
spirit  is,  and  how  immediately  it  fastens  its 
slander  and  spite  upon  any  labors  above  the 


84  The  Mount. 

dead  level  of  commonplace  Philistine  exist- 
ence, will  be  prepared  to  hear  that  a  man 
who  spent  his  summers  in  a  hut  on  a  hill-top 
to  dig  for  Gaulish  antiquities  immediately  be- 
came the  object  of  Philistine  ridicule  in  his 
own  neighborhood.  The  most  wonderful 
thing  in  this  spirit  is  that  it  takes  such  strong 
possession  of  minds  that  never  concerned 
themselves  with  the  subjects  under  discussion. 
It  is  intelligible,  though  to  be  regretted,  that 
one  antiquary  should  speak  bitterly  of  the 
labors  of  another;  but  is  it  not  astonishing 
that  people  who  never  in  their  lives  read  a 
line  of  any  ancient  author  should  be  bitterer 
still  on  subjects  as  much  beyond  their  com- 
prehension as  the  differential  calculus?  Yet 
the  tongues  of  the  most  ignorant  women 
were  excited  to  feverish  activity  against  the 
Antiquary,  and  they  affirmed  that  he  knew 
nothing  whatever  of  the  subjects  which  had 
occupied  his  leisure  for  twenty  years,  and 
the  whole  of  his  time  for  ten.  I  have 
been  perfectly  amazed  by  the  self-confidence 
with  which  they  settled  his  rank  among  the 
savants.  I  remember  one  lady  especially  who 
affirmed  that  nothing  whatever  had  been  dis- 
covered upon  the  Beuvray  except  the  remains 


The  Mount.  85 

of  the  old  convent,  which  everybody  knew 
about  already.  Other  people  admitted  that 
the  Antiquary  had  found  antiquities  there, 
but  said  that  he  had  carried  them  up  the  hill 
and  had  them  buried  to  be  disinterred  when- 
ever convenient  in  the  presence  of  spectators 
-  I  only  hope  that  this  theory  was  not  in- 
tended to  include  the  ramparts  and  the  Gaul- 
ish houses.  I  have  already  mentioned  the 
condition  on  which  these  excavations  have  been 
carried  on,  —  the  condition  that  they  shall 
always  be  filled  up  again  in  the  autumn. 
Hence  when  the  Antiquary's  enemies  visit 
the  hill,  which  they  do  sometimes  for  a  picnic 
to  see  the  view  and  have  dejeuner  on  the  top, 
they  can  easily  convince  the  ladies  of  the 
party  that  nothing  has  been  done.  But  by  far 
the  most  remarkable  proof  of  bad  faith  in 
some  instances  and  intense  prejudice  in  others 
is  what  may  be  called  the  Great  Water  Argu- 
ment. There  is  a  strong  and  influential  party 
in  Autun  and  the  surrounding  country  who 
base  their  convictions  on  the  facts  of  nature. 
They  have  certainly  never  read  Professor 
Huxley,  but  they  profess  adherence  to  the 
spirit  of  his  great  words  in  praise  of  natural 
knowledge  when  he  said  that  men  relied  upon 


86  The  Mount. 

the  truths  of  science  because  they  knew  that 
if  they  went  to  Nature,  Nature  would  confirm 
them.  So  it  is  urged  that  the  Beuvray  can 
never  have  been  inhabited  by  a  numerous 
population,  because  there  is  no  water  there. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  examples  of 
the  strength  of  prejudice  that  I  ever  met  with. 
People  of  both  sexes  have  said  to  me  with 
an  air  of  triumphant  satisfaction,  "  You  know 
there  is  one  thing  which  proves  conclusively 
that  there  never  can  have  been  a  city  upon 
the  Beuvray,  —  there  is  no  water,  and  that 
settles  the  question."  General  Changarnier 
belongs  to  this  party;  he  says  there  is  no 
water  on  the  Beuvray.  Now  the  truth  is 
that  there  are  no  less  than  twenty-two  per- 
petual springs  within  the  Gaulish  ramparts, 
some  of  which  are  very  abundant;  that  three 
rivulets  flow  down  the  sides  of  the  hill ;  that 
an  antique  well  which  I  have  seen  was  dis- 
covered on  the  very  summit;  and  that  the 
water  in  this  well,  in  the  utmost  heat  of  a 
dry  summer,  was  within  eight  feet  of  the 
surface  of  the  ground.  Not  only  is  it  untrue 
that  the  Mount  is  waterless  like  Etna,  but  the 
truth  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  this.  Mount 
Beuvray  is  as  remarkable  for  the  inexhausti- 


The  Mount.  87 

ble  abundance  of  its  waters  and  for  the  height 
at  which  they  spring  as  it  is  for  their  perfect 
purity.  So  far  from  being  deterred  from 
selecting  this  crest  as  the  site  of  a  great 
oppidum  because  the  garrison  might  suffer 
from  thirst,  the  Gauls  would,  on  the  contrary, 
be  attracted  by  the  abundance  of  pure  waters 
that  no  enemy  could  divert  from  their  city, 
since  the  springs  themselves  were  within  the 
circumference  of  its  walls.  Along  the  course 
of  one  of  the  three  brooks  five  artificial  basins 
were  discovered  during  the  excavations,  with 
a  concrete  bottom  ten  inches  thick,  evidence 
enough  that  the  inhabitants  had  paid  atten- 
tion to  their  water  supply.  Is  not  this  Great 
Water  Argument  a  very  pretty  example  of 
the  strength  of  prejudice  ?  The  controversy 
about  Bibracte  has,  however,  produced  mental 
aberrations  of  a  nature  still  more  surprising. 
The  leader  of  the  Autun  party  got  into  the 
habit  of  writing  bitter  letters  against  the 
Antiquary  and  addressing  them  to  great  per- 
sonages, to  the  astonishment  of  the  recipients  ; 
and  when  I  say  great  personages,  I  mean  the 
very  greatest  personages.  The  late  Emperor 
Napoleon  often  received  these  letters,  but  they 
did  not  in  the  least  affect  his -confidence  in 


88  The  Mount. 

the  Antiquary.  Since  the  fall  of  the  Empire 
letters  from  the  same  source  have  reached  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction  for  the  time 
being,  and  also  certain  foreign  personages, 
including  no  less  a  notability  than  Prince 
Bismarck.  I  happen  to  have  read  the  letter 
which  was  addressed  to  Bismarck,  and  I  hap- 
pen to  know,  on  the  best  possible  authority, 
that  he  read  the  letter  and  had  a  hearty  laugh 
over  it.  The  Chancellor  must  have  met  with 
many  human  curiosities,  but  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  he  ever  met  with  such  a 
specimen  of  the  perfectly  unscrupulous  con- 
troversialist as  the  author  of  that  extraordinary 
epistle.  Another  letter  by  the  same  writer 
formed  the  subject  of  conversation  at  an 
august  dinner-table  where  a  great  personage 
appeared  more  puzzled  by  it  than  amused. 

Although  there  is  still  much  local  hostility 
against  the  Antiquary,  his  theory  is  now  very 
generally  accepted  by  the  learned  world  out- 
side, and  every  year  adds  to  the  number  of 
his  supporters.  The  local  hostility  has  dis- 
turbed him  very  little,  and  only  served  to 
attach  him  more  firmly  to  the  work  so  well 
begun.  A  more  trying  infliction  is  that  of 
tourists  who  come  for  their  amusement.  I 


The  Mount.  89 

do  not  mean  the  learned  tourist  who  can 
understand  what  he  is  told,  but  the  ignorant 
fashionable  tourist  who  wastes  the  Anti- 
quary's time,  intrudes  upon  his  privacy,  and 
is  incapacitated  by  his  own  levity  for  any 
understanding  of  the  Antiquary's  explora- 
tions. Unfortunately,  the  huts  and  cottage 
are  situated  close  to  one  of  the  Gaulish  roads 
by  which  these  people  most  easily  ascend, 
and  about  eleven  in  the  morning,  our  time 
for  dejeuner,  a  whole  company  of  them  falls 
upon  us  at  once.  Nothing  can  be  more 
disagreeable  than  these  invasions.  Some 
previous  experience  in  Great  Britain  had 
quite  prepared  me  for  what  we  had  to  ex- 
pect. If  you  happen  to  be  living  in  a  tent, 
or  a  hut,  or  a  rude  cottage,  people  who  think 
themselves  models  of  good  manners  will  be- 
have towards  you  with  the  most  consummate 
indiscretion.  They  will  open  a  tent  curtain 
and  peep  in  at  you  possibly  just  when  you 
are  undressed,  they  will  crowd  round  the 
windows  of  a  hut,  they  will  open  the  door 
of  a  cottage  and  penetrate,  uninvited,  into 
the  interior.  They  appear  entirely  to  forget 
that  your  tent,  hut,  or  cottage  is  just  as  much 
your  mansion  for  the  time  being  as  their  own 


90  The  Mount. 

houses  are  theirs,  and  that  an  intrusion  is  just 
as  unpardonable  in  the  one  case  as  it  would 
be  in  the  other.  How  the  Antiquary  endures 
it  seems  almost  past  comprehension.  In  his 
place  I  would  have  hedged  round  the  camp 
like  Robinson  Crusoe's  citadel  and  put  man- 
traps and  spring-guns,  —  at  any  cost  I  would 
have  had  privacy  chez  mot.  He  had  been 
obliged  to  consider  convenience  of  access  for 
himself,  and  therefore  had  to  be  near  the 
road,  and  the  water  question  (so  important  for 
camp  or  house)  had  fixed  him  near  a  foun- 
tain; but  there  were  many  other  fountains  to 
choose  from,  and  it  would  have  been  easy 
to  make  a  hundred  yards  of  private  road  lead- 
ing to  a  hidden  citadel.  A  hundred  yards, 
in  these  cases,  may  make  the  difference  be- 
tween snug  retirement  and  uncomfortable 
publicity.  I  once  encamped  in  Scotland 
within  that  distance  of  a  public  road,  in- 
fested by  tourists,  and  not  one  of  them  found 
me  out,  thanks  to  a  little  mound  of  earth  and 
a  few  bushes.  It  was  amusing  to  hear  them 
pass  without  a  suspicion  that  my  camp  was 
there,  for  they  would  not  have  passed  so 
readily  if  they  had  known  of  it. 

One  day  the  Antiquary  and   I,  with  a  com- 


The  Mount.  91 

mon  friend  of  ours,  were  all  happily  at  de- 
jeuner in  the  cottage,  when  our  happiness 
was  suddenly  clouded  by  one  of  those  appari- 
tions that  are  much  more  inimical  to  peace 
than  the  white  horse  or  the  phantom  hunts- 
man. Fifteen  tourists  came  in  a  body.  First 
they  looked  in  at  us  through  the  window,  and 
then  they  came  inside  and  crowded  the  room 
where  we  were  eating.  There  was  some 
bacon  hung  up  in  a  corner  of  the  room  with 
the  punning  inscription,  "  1'Art  pour  tous," 
so  one  of  the  ladies  inquired  if  we  sold  bacon. 
It  was  of  course  simply  impossible  for  Pau- 
chard  to  continue  the  service  of  our  table, 
and  our  repast  was  suspended  for  about  half 
an  hour.  Our  visitors  were  a  distinguished 
party  of  nobility,  but  my  impression  is  that 
when  you  go  in  a  body  to  pay  a  visit  to  a 
gentleman  in  any  house  or  cottage  that  it 
may  please  him  to  inhabit,  you  ought  not  to 
crowd  into  his  dining-room  and  interrupt  his 
meal  so  that  his  guests  have  to  wait  half  an 
hour  between  two  dishes.  At  last,  however, 
they  went  out  again  and  we  resumed  our 
forks ;  but  suddenly  the  Antiquary  said  to 
me,  "  I  do  hope  you  have  locked  your  hut 
(he  had  surrendered  one  of  the  huts  to  me 


92  The  Motmt. 

for  a  study  and  bedroom),  for  if  you  have  not, 
those  people  will  be  inside  it,  and  I  have  a  lot 
of  most  precious  things  on  the  shelf  which 
they  are  likely  enough  to  pilfer.  You  have 
no  notion  how  fashionable  tourists  will  steal 
when  they  have  an  opportunity."  This  re- 
minded me  that  the  shelves  of  my  hut  were 
covered  with  a  number  of  ancient  ornaments 
and  curious  specimens  of  the  greatest  value 
as  illustrations  of  the  state  of  the  arts  in 
Gaul,  so  I  sprang  from  my  seat  and  said, 
"  If  any  one  is  in  the  hut,  he  shall  not  be 
in  it  long !  "  Well,  when  I  got  there  I  found 
a  gentleman  inside  fingering  the  antiquities 
in  question,  and  a  lady  looking  at  the  con- 
tents of  my  portmanteau,  which  lay  open 
on  the  bed.  I  turned  both  of  them  out 
sharply,  fastened  the  shutter  inside,  and  then 
locked  the  door  in  a  sufficiently  demonstra- 
tive manner  to  make  myself  clearly  under- 
stood. I  hesitated  an  instant  whether  I 
should  not  rather  just  turn  the  key  on  them, 
leave  them  locked  up  together  inside,  and 
set  off  to  the  woods  for  the  rest  of  the  day ; 
but  consideration  for  the  Antiquary's  pre- 
cious bits  of  Gaulish  and  Roman  jewelry, 
coins,  etc.,  made  me  reflect  that  these  people 


The  Mount.  93 

were  better  outside  the  hut  than  in.  It  would 
have  deeply  gratified  and  amused  me,  how- 
ever, to  make  prisoners  of  them,  and  I  have 
ever  since  regretted  that  the  precious  anti- 
quities ensured  them  liberty.  The  lady  in 
question  was  a  fashionable  titled  lady.  It 
seemed,  no  doubt,  perfectly  natural  to  her 
to  go  into  my  bedroom  and  amuse  herself 
by  examining  its  contents ;  but  suppose  that 
I  were  to  return  the  visit  in  the  same  man- 
ner ?  She  lives  at  a  great  chateau,  and  I  ask 
what  impression  would  be  produced  in  the 
noble  society  there  if  I  were  to  penetrate, 
without  permission,  into  her  bedroom  and 
examine  the  contents  of  her  drawers  ?  The 
answer  is  easy.  I  should  most  certainly  be 
sent  to  prison.  Then  why  does  she  consider 
herself  authorized  to  do  in  my  habitation 
what  I  might  not  do  in  hers?  It  is  just 
possible  that  our  plain,  rough  costume  on  the 
Mount,  —  for  we  wear  nothing  but  old  gray 
clothes  there,  and  our  big  boots  do  not  get 
blackened  and  polished  like  the  boots  of 
dandies  on  the  boulevard,  —  with  the  rough 
walls  of  the  cottage,  its  simple  furniture  and 
suspended  flitch  of  bacon,  may  have  inspired 
our  visitors  with  the  notion  that  we  were  not 


94  The  Moimt. 

persons  worthy  of  much  consideration ;  but 
that  is  not  a  reason  for  invading  our  humble 
dwellings.  It  is  strange,  too,  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  manners  appears  to  be  in  in- 
verse ratio  to  the  rank  of  the  personage.  I 
thought  it  difficult  to  go  beyond  the  indis- 
cretion of  the  above-mentioned  lady,  but  there 
came  two  others  of  more  elevated  rank  one 
day  who  behaved  still  more  inexcusably. 
Their  servant  was  sent  up  with  provisions 
for  them,  which  he  deposited  at  the  cottage. 
The  weather  was  bad  outside,  and  they  came 
to  eat  their  luncheon  in  the  Antiquary's  sim- 
ple room.  They  behaved  as  if  their  bodies 
were  two  icebergs,  chilling  the  atmosphere, 
and  their  souls  two  polar  bears.  A  young 
gentleman  present,  a  guest  of  the  Antiquary, 
and  himself  a  scion  of  the  most  ancient  no- 
bility in  France,  was  snubbed  by  them  most 
outrageously  because  he  very  kindly  took  the 
trouble  to  be  polite.  One  of  the  two  ladies 
positively  inquired  "  in  what  capacity  (a  quel 
titre)  the  young  man  offered  them  these  at- 
tentions." To  which  the  Antiquary,  who 
is  generally  mildness  itself,  gave  them  an 
answer  which  prevented  any  further  obser- 
vations of  that  nature.  The  scene  was  at 


The  Moiint.  95 

the  same  time  very  irritating  and  very  amus- 
ing. It  would  have  delighted  Thackeray,  and 
given  him  material  for  a  chapter;  it  would 
have  disgusted  Dickens,  and  converted  any- 
body but  a  satirist  into  a  democrat  on  the 
spot.  It  is  agreeable,  however,  to  be  able 
to  add  that  the  Antiquary  has  pleasanter 
visitors  than  these,  even  of  high  rank.  The 
Count  of  Paris  came  one  day,  studied  every- 
thing conscientiously,  and  talked  like  a  gen- 
tleman and  a  man  of  sense  who  had  seen 
the  world.  When  great  people  have  bad 
manners  it  is  often  due  to  simple  ignorance 
of  life.  The  late  Emperor  never  found  time 
to  visit  the  Mount  personally,  though  the 
place  interested  him  greatly;  but  if  he  had 
come  and  taken  his  dejeuner  on  the  deal 
board  in  the  cottage,  he  would  certainly  have 
left  nothing  but  agreeable  recollections  of  his 
visit.  With  all  his  faults,  he  had  delicacy 
and  tact,  and  the  manners  of  a  gentleman 
with  gentlemen.  But  then  both  the  Count 
and  the  Emperor  had  seen  different  classes  of 
society  in  other  countries,  and  had  not  always 
lived  in  the  narrow  life  of  a  French  chateau, 
nor  been  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of 
their  own  immaculate  nobility. 


g6  The  Mount. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  ANTIQUARY'S  HOSPITALITY  —  PLEASANT  SOCIETY 
ON  THE  MOUNT  —  AN  ESCAPED  HOSTAGE  —  SELF- 
DEVOTION  OF  TWO  YOUNG  PRIESTS  —  DISCOVERY  OF 
A  GAULISH  FIREPLACE  —  WE  LIGHT  A  FIRE  THEKEON 
—  EVENTS  THAT  HAD  PASSED  BETWEEN  TWO  LIGHTINGS 
OF  THE  FIRE  —  THE  ANTIQUARY  DELIVERS  AN  ELO- 
QUENT LECTURE  AND  SINGS  OLD  BALLADS  —  THE 
AUTHOR  TRANSLATES  POETRY  —  DELIGHTFUL  EVEN- 
ING—  PAUCHARD'S  BEAUTIFUL  LEGEND  OF  THE  NIGHT- 
INGALE —  "  LA  PIERRE  DE  LA  WIVRE  "  —  ITS  LEGEND. 

INDEPENDENTLY  of  the  numbers  of 
tourists  who  intrude  uninvited  on  the 
Antiquary's  privacy,  his  own  hospitable  dis- 
position often  crowds  the  little  mountain 
establishment  with  friends,  especially  young 
friends.  The  tone  that  prevails  there  at 
these  times  is  perfectly  charming.  A  frank 
and  lively  gayety,  with  imperturbable  good 
humor,  reigns  like  steady  sunshine  over  all, 
and  there  is  an  active  willingness  on  the  part 
of  everybody  to  make  things  agreeable  to 
everybody  else.  I  had  often  been  in  socie- 
ties where  perfect  dulness  dwelt  with  perfect 


The  Mount.  97 

propriety,  and  sometimes  in  societies  which 
were  not  dull,  yet  spoiled  for  thorough  enjoy- 
ment by  some  defect  of  taste.  I  have  rarely 
been  with  people  who  united  so  well  good 
humor  passing  into  extravagance,  with  an 
unfailing  right  sense  of  what  is  permissible 
and  what  is  not.  We  were  as  merry  for  days 
together  as  if  we  had  been  as  many  prof- 
ligates and  prodigals,  yet  nothing  was  ever 
said  that  a  young  maiden  might  not  have 
listened  to. 

The  merriest  person  in  the  whole  party  was 
a  young  priest  who  a  few  weeks  before  had 
been  one  of  the  hostages  condemned  to  death 
by  the  Commune.  He  was  actually  led  forth 
to  execution,  and  put  in  the  same  omnibus 
with  the  others  who  were  to  be  shot  that 
morning;  but  whilst  they  were  in  the  street, 
the  guard  took  pity  on  the  youth  of  two  pas- 
sengers, and  told  them  to  go  out  and  go  their 
way.  The  transition  from  those  terrible 
scenes  and  that  imminence  of  violent  death, 
to  our  free  and  joyous  life  on  the  Mount,  put 
this  young  gentleman  into  such  a  state  of  hap- 
piness that  it  became  perfectly  exuberant,  and 
the  mere  sight  of  his  handsome,  laughing  face 
was  as  good  as  a  glass  of  champagne.  "  You 

7 


98  The  Mount. 

must  not  imagine,"  the  Antiquary  said  to  me 
one  day  when  this  youth  had  been  making  us 
all  laugh  till  our  sides  ached,  "  that  he  is  in- 
capable of  serious  thought,  —  on  the  contrary, 
he  is  devoted  to  his  profession ;  but  he  is  young 
and  healthy,  and  life  is  especially  sweet  to  him 
now,  for  the  Shadow  of  Death  has  been  upon 
him."  We  had  another  young  priest  also  in 
the  party,  graver,  but  very  cheerful,  and  he 
and  I  took  a  liking  for  each  other,  and  had 
many  a  long  talk  together  in  quiet  saunterings 
under  the  ancient  trees.  Since  then  the  first 
of  these  two  young  men  has  devoted  himself, 
along  with  the  companion  who  was  saved  at 
the  same  time,  entirely  to  the  service  of  the 
worst  classes  in  great  cities,  and  has  chosen 
for  the  scene  of  his  labors  one  of  the  most  dis- 
agreeable industrial  towns  in  France.  They 
hope  thus  to  do  something  towards  the  civili- 
zation of  the  Communards,  and  believe  that 
their  own  lives,  so  wonderfully  rescued  from 
destruction,  ought  to  be  consecrated  to  the 
good  of  their  persecutors.  My  other  young 
friend  of  the  Mount  has  taken  vows  of  volun- 
tary poverty  and  obedience,  and  is  now  a 
teacher  in  a  school,  with  arduous,  monotonous 
labor  from  day  to  day,  from  year  to  year,  and 


The  Mount.  99 

no  pleasure,  or  liberty,  or  money.1  Wide,  in- 
deed, are  the  differences  of  opinion  between 
these  young  men  and  me ;  but  when  I  see 
them  thus,  on  the  very  threshold  of  manly 
life,  deliberately  dedicating  their  entire  ener- 
gies to  what  they  believe  to  be  the  best  and 
highest  work  that  they  can  find  to  do  in  God's 
service,  I  bow  my  head  in  unfeigned  respect 
for  a  resolve  so  earnest  and  so  pure.  Just 
think  of  the  almost  incredible  force  of  renun- 
ciation that  is  needed  for  it!  —  the  sacrifice  of 
family  life,  the  abandonment  of  liberty,  and 
this  without  any  compensating  indulgence  of 
dreamy  indolence,  but  with  work  from  the 
early  morning,  monotonous,  and  wearing,  and 
wearisome,  and  no  wages  in  fame  or  gold,  but 
only  the  sense  of  an  obscure  utility,  accepta- 
ble in  heaven  !  The  Antiquary  says  that  no 
human  strength  of  heart  would  be  equal  to  it, 
and  he  believes  that  a  supernatural  strength 
is  given.  But  whether  you  think  with  the 
Antiquary  that  a  Divine  power  is  given  spe- 
cially in  each  individual  case,  or  with  me  that 

1  This  is  to  be  taken  in  quite  a  literal  sense.  I  mean  that 
my  friend  may  not  accept  or  possess  any  particle  of  the  circu- 
lating medium,  not  so  much  as  a  single  coin  of  the  lowest 
value.  He  gets  bare  food  and  clothing. 


ioo  The  Mount. 

such  possibilities  have  been  implanted  in 
human  nature  at  its  origin,  you  are  still  in 
presence  of  a  great  sentiment  carried  out  into 
strongly  persistent  practice,  which  is  a  specta- 
cle more  sublime  than  any  we  witnessed  from 
the  Mount,  whether  it  were  the  pinnacles  of 
the  far  Alps  in  the  morning,  or  the  broad 
Loire  flowing  away  into  the  crimson  flames  of 
the  sunset. 

One  day,  when  these  and  other  young  men 
were  with  us,  the  laborers  made  a  great  find, 
—  they  found  a  semicircular  Gaulish  fireplace 
in  quite  perfect  preservation,  with  remains  of 
charcoal  in  it  from  the  last  fire  that  the  Gaul 
had  burned  there  two  thousand  years  ago  upon 
Bibracte.  This  interested  us  all  very  much, 
and  I  proposed  that  we  should  kindle  a  fire 
once  more  on  that  antique  hearth.  Our 
young  friends  were  delighted  with  this  propo- 
sition, and  so  was  the  Antiquary;  and  when 
the  shades  of  evening  fell,  and  the  stars  were 
out,  that  ancient  hearth  was  warmed  once  more, 
and  it  is  an  actual  fact  that  the  charcoal  which 
had  remained  there  cold  and  black  since  the 
Gaul  quitted  it  was  lighted  again  from  our  own 
firewood.  There  was  not  one  of  us  who  did 
not  deeply  feel  the  awful  vastness  of  the  inter- 


The  Mount.  101 

val  between  the  last  time  that  wood  flamed 
there  and  the  present.  The  entire  space  of 
time  occupied  by  the  history  of  Christianity 
had  passed  in  the  tremendous  interval  be- 
tween the  extinguishing  and  the  rekindling 
of  one  of  those  bits  of  charcoal,  the  vast 
pageant  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  their  count- 
less wars,  the  slow  formation  of  the  mighty 
modern  empires,  the  discovery  and  repeopling 
of  America  from  the  arctic  solitudes  to  Cape 
Horn,  the  long  genealogy  of  all  the  most 
ancient  existing  families  in  the  world,  the  rise, 
decline,  and  fall  of  the  Papacy  as  a  temporal 
power,  the  whole  history  of  royalty  in  France 
down  to  what  may  very  probably  have  been 
its  final  extinction  at  Sedan,  the  grandeur  of 
Spain,  the  grandeur  of  Holland,  yes,  even  the 
grandeur  of  the  Caliphs,  —  all  had  passed  in 
that  great  gulf  of  time  which  the  mind  could  not 
contemplate  without  giddiness.  Of  all  these 
things  we  spoke,  and  I  too,  as  an  Englishman, 
had  my  special  private  thoughts  about  some- 
thing that  had  passed  between  these  two 
lightings  of  a  fire.  When  the  Gaul  lighted  his 
fire  there  the  sons  of  Britain  were  powerless 
against  the  strength  of  Rome ;  but  when  we 
lighted  our  fire,  Great  Britain  had  become  a 


IO2  The  Mount. 

mother  of  nations  and  empress  of  subject 
races,  with  a  territory  vaster  than  the  dreams 
of  Caesar  and  a  population  more  numerous 
than  the  multitudes  of  Alexander,  whilst  the 
strength  of  every  man  in  England  had  been 
multiplied  a  hundred-fold  by  inventions  never 
imagined  by  any  ancient,  not  even  by  the  fer- 
tile brain  of  Archimedes. 

There  are  times  in  life  which  we  remember 
always,  times  which  become  a  part  of  our  con- 
scious experience,  to  which  we  afterwards  refer 
as  if  they  were  dates  of  great  events  ;  yet  these 
times  are  often  calm  and  uneventful.  Our 
evening  by  that  Gaulish  fireplace  was  one  of 
them.  All  who  were  present  remember  the 
whole  of  that  long  evening  vividly.  We  were 
all  in  a  condition  of  extreme  sensitiveness  to 
romantic  and  poetic  emotion,  due  to  the 
strangeness  of  the  scene,  to  its  perfect  beauty, 
and  the  entire  absence  of  every  discordant 
element.  We  had  all  been  strongly  impressed 
with  the  mere  lighting  of  the  fire,  and  the 
warming  of  a  hearth  that  had  been  cold  since 
the  birth  of  Christ ;  nor  was  the  visible  scene 
around  us  of  a  character  likely  to  destroy  in 
us  that  sense  of  mystery  and  vastness  which 
alone  is  capable  of  perceiving  the  abysses  of 


The  Mount.  103 

time  past.  The  sky  was  "  softly  dark  and 
darkly  pure"  above  us,  the  clear,  dark  sky 
of  a  summer  twilight  in  Burgundy.  On  one 
hand  were  the  old  beechen  groves,  throwing 
their  branches  wide,  on  the  other  the  sudden 
slope  of  the  forest  beneath  us  down  into  the 
deep  valley ;  and  a  vast  prospect  led  the  eye 
over  minor  hills  and  plains  till  it  met  the 
crimson  mist  of  the  western  horizon.  Then 
the  stars  became  brighter  and  brighter,  and 
the  flame  of  our  fire  glowed  more  ruddily, 
and  the  Antiquary,  inspired  by  the  influences 
of  the  scene  and  the  hour,  talked  to  us  of 
the  past  with  the  unconscious  eloquence  of  a 
speaker  who  is  absorbed  in  a  great  subject, 
and  sure  of  the  full  sympathy  of  his  audience. 
When  he  came  to  the  Middle  Ages,  he  sang 
to  us  old  ballads  and  pointed  out  whatever 
they  revealed  of  the  life  and  habits  of  that 
time,  making  many  a  delicate  observation, 
such  as  can  only  occur  to  the  loving  and  ear- 
nest student.  The  Antiquary  excelled  him- 
self that  night,  and  so  communicated  to  all  of 
us  the  power  of  his  own  enthusiasm  that  we 
were  in  such  a  state  of  imaginative  exaltation 
as  I  never  before  witnessed  in  a  circle  of  pri- 
vate friends ;  and  this  condition  of  feeling  was 


IO4  The  Mount. 

the  more  remarkable  for  its  contrast  with  our 
ordinary  habits,  which  were  those  of  light- 
hearted  gayety  and  simple  enjoyment  of  the 
days  as  they  passed  by.  A  singular  proof 
that  our  imaginative  powers  must  have  been 
in  extraordinary  strength  and  excitement  was 
what  took  place  in  the  cottage  on  our  return. 
The  Antiquary  had  heard  me  speak  of  Ros- 
setti's  poems,  a  copy  of  which  I  happened  to 
have  with  me  on  the  Mount,  and  he  bested 

oo 

me  to  translate  one  of  them  on  that  occasion. 
Now  in  ordinary  circumstances  I  could  not  ex- 
temporize a  French  translation  of  an  English 
poem  that  would  be  worth  hearing,  but  some- 
thing told  me  that  night  that  a  power  of  this 
kind  was  temporarily  in  my  possession,  so  I 
opened  the  book  and  began. 

The  effect,  both  on  myself  and  everybody 
present,  was  most  remarkable.  I  felt  trans- 
ported into  the  highest  realm  of  poetry,  and 
became  for  that  one  hour  a  French  poet 
endowed  with  Rossetti's  genius,  which  passed 
through  me  as  electricity  passes  through  a 
conductor.  In  this  way  I  translated  —  if  such 
spontaneous  utterance  is  to  be  called  transla- 
tion at  all  —  the  Blessed  Damozel,  Sister  Helen, 
and  Stratton  Water,  and  both  I  and  every  one 


The  Mount. 


105 


present  were  in  a  state  of  intense  emotion  the 
whole  time,  —  indeed,  as  for  the  audience,  I 
never  saw  an  audience  so  moved  by  poetry  in 
my  life ;  and  the  next  day,  when  prosaic  reason 
returned  to  us,  we  were  all  very  much  aston- 
ished at  the  enchanted  evening  we  had  passed 
together.  When  I  look  over  these  poems  to- 
day they  seem  to  me  utterly  untranslatable, 
and  I  cannot  conceive  through  what  medium 
of  equivalents  the  power  of  them  reached  my 
hearers.1  Yet  it  did  reach  them. 

There  seems  to  be  a  necessity  that  every- 
thing should  be  poetical  on  the  Mount.  Even 
Pauchard,  whose  occupations  of  cook  and 
housekeeper  in  one  had  certainly  rather  the 
merit  of  utility  than  the  charms  of  romance, 
accounted  for  the  song  of  the  nightingale  by 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  popular  legends  that 
I  ever  met  with.  To  enjoy  it  quite  perfectly 
one  ought  to  hear  Pauchard  tell  the  tale  him- 
self, for  nobody  could  tell  it  better,  and  he  has 

1  If  the  reader  happens  to  know  French  well,  and  to  pos- 
sess Rossetti's  poems,  let  him  try  to  read  any  one  of  the  three 
above-mentioned  aloud  in  French  from  the  English  text,  and 
he  will  soon  understand  the  difficulty  of  it.  All  poems  are 
difficult  to  translate  into  another  language,  but  in  some 
instances,  and  this  is  one  of  them,  the  difficulty  seems  to 
amount  to  impossibility. 


io6  The  Mount. 

the  advantage  of  very  nearly,  yet  not  quite 
absolutely,  believing  it.  When  first  he  told  it 
to  the  Antiquary,  some  years  ago,  it  was  in  per- 
fect faith,  but  now  he  sees  that  the  Antiquary 
only  admires  without  believing,  and  a  tinge 
of  scepticism  has,  I  fear,  invaded  Pauchard's 
intellect  also.  Pauchard  is  a  man  of  little 
knowledge,  but  of  delicate  feeling,  and  when 
he  tells  this  tale  he  gives  it  every  help  from 
well-chosen  inflections  of  the  voice,  and  you 
feel  that  although  he  has  never  consciously 
cultivated  any  art  of  poetry,  the  spirit  of 
poetry  is  within  him,  poor,  illiterate  peasant  as 
he  is.  But  to  appreciate  this  legend  perfectly 
we  ought  to  hear  it  on  the  Mount,  under  the 
old  trees,  on  a  summer's  night  when  the  night- 
ingales are  answering  each  other  in  Malvaux. 
"  Those  little  birds,"  says  Pauchard,  "  have  not 
always  sung  like  that  in  the  night-time.  Long 
ago  they  sang  in  the  day,  but  one  of  them  had 
been  singing  so  hard  all  day  long  whilst  his 
mate  was  sitting  on  her  eggs,  that  when  even- 
ing came  he  was  very  weary,  and  went  to 
roost  on  the  vine,  where  he  fell  asleep  directly. 
Now  it  was  a  warm  night  of  May,  and  the 
tendrils  of  the  vine  were  growing  very  fast, 
and  they  twined  round  the  little  thin  legs  of 


The  Mount.  107 

the  nightingale  whilst  he  slept.  His  comrades 
came  to  awake  him,  and  said,  'La  vigne pousse 
— pousse  —  vite,  vite,  vite,  vite,  vite  /'  but  he 
was  so  tired  that  he  could  not  be  awakened. 
At  last  morning  dawned  and  then  the  sleeper 
awoke,  but  only  to  find  himself  helplessly  fet- 
tered by  the  tendrils  of  the  vine  which  had 
grown  so  quickly  that  now  they  held  him  fast, 
and  he  could  not  get  away  with  all  the  flutter- 
ing of  his  wings.  Then  his  comrades  saw 
him  die,  and  they  said  to  one  another,  '  We 
will  sleep  no  more  in  the  night  so  long  as  the 
vine  is  growing.'  And  ever  since  then  they 
do  nothing  but  sing  all  night  to  keep  them- 
selves awake,  and  this  is  the  burden  of  their 
song  :  '  La  vigne  pousse  — pousse  —  vite,  vite, 
vite,  vite,  vite,  vite,  vite  / '  " 1 

Now  is  not  that  a  perfect  little  flower  of  the 
popular  imagination  ?  I  never  met  with  any- 
thing more  exquisite.  It  is  full  of  the  most 
tender  feeling  for  nature,  and  the  lightest, 
most  graceful  imagination.  It  might  have 
been  invented  by  some  cultivated  Oriental 

1  When  Pauchard  told  the  little  tale,  he  pronounced  pousse 
— Pousse  — pousse  very  slowly  and  seriously,  as  if  gravely  an- 
nouncing a  fact  that  was  full  of  peril,  but  when  he  came  to 
vite,  vile,  vite,  he  pitched  his  voice  much  higher  and  gave  it  an 
energetic  presto. 


io8  The  Mount. 

poet,  it  might  have  been  a  fancy  of  Hafiz  him- 
self, suggested  to  his  delicate  sympathy  by  the 
song  of  a  nightingale  in  the  warm  Persian 
night,  when  the  vines  were  growing  fast.  Yet 
it  was  not  Hafiz  who  invented  it,  but  some 
nameless  peasant  of  the  Morvan,  in  an  obscure 
village,  nobody  knows  how  or  when. 

Much  has  been  already  said  concerning  the 
things  of  interest  on  the  Mount,  yet  one  or 
two  of  them  remain  unnoticed.  The  old 
Gaulish  roads  are  still  so  hard  that  trees  can- 
not take  root  in  them,  but  where  not  traversed 
by  the  oxen  that  come  for  wood  these  roads 
are  covered  with  short  grass  like  a  lawn,  and 
the  trees  on  each  side  meet  overhead,  making 
long,  very  long,  avenues  of  green  shade  where 
it  is  pleasant  to  walk  in  solitude.  In  the  deep 
gorge  of  Malvaux  (Mala  Vallis)  the  Gauls 
made  a  cutting  for  their  road  through  the 
solid  rock  where  there  is  only  just  room 
for  the  brook  that  flows  from  the  Beuvray. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  traces  of 
their  labors  about  the  Mount,  and  as  fresh  as 
if  done  yesterday,  the  tool  marks  still  visible 
in  the  hard  rock.  They  had  also  evidently 
fashioned  a  projecting  pinnacle  of  porphyry 
on  one  of  the  great  buttresses  of  the  Mount, 


The  Mount.  109 

the  stone  that  is  called  "  La  pierre  de  la 
Wivre,"  which  is  believed  to  have  been  a  place 
of  sacrifice,  and  there  is  a  very  curious  and 
impressive  legend  about  this  stone. 

The  peasants  believe  that  the  Wivern 
dwells  near  it  in  a  hidden  cavern  guarding 
his  treasure,  but  that  once  a  year  the  cavern 
opens  and  the  Wivern  goes  out,  leaving  the 
treasure  unguarded.  As  to  the  time  of  year 
when  this  happens  the  narrators  differ.  Some 
say  that  it  is  at  midnight  on  Christmas  Eve, 
others  fix  it  on  Easter  Day  during  high 
mass ;  in  either  case  it  is  during  mass,  as 
there  is  a  midnight  service  at  Christmas. 
The  popular  legend  in  its  present  form  goes 
on  to  recount  how  a  certain  woman,  accom- 
panied by  her  child,  went  to  the  stone  of  the 
Wivern  instead  of  going  to  mass,  intending 
to  take  his  treasure.  She  found  the  cave 
open,  entered  and  took  as  much  gold  as  she 
could  carry,  and  came  out  just  in  time  to 
escape  the  Wivern  on  his  return.  On  look- 
ing round  for  her  child  she  could  not  find 
him  anywhere.  The  cavern  being  now  closed 
again,  she  knew  not  what  to  do,  and  went  in 
despair  to  the  priest,  who  told  her  to  go  to 
the  place  every  day,  and  pour  milk  and  honey 


no  The  Mount. 

on  the  stone  till  the  expiration  of  the  twelve 
months,  and  then  when  the  day  came  for  the 
opening  of  the  cave,  to  take  her  treasure  back 
to  it  undiminished  and  she  should  find  her 
child.  So  she  went  day  by  day  without  fail, 
in  heat  and  cold,  in  fine  weather  and  foul,  and 
poured  milk  and  honey  on  the  stone.  At  last 
the  day  came  when  the  Wivern  left  the  cave 
and  the  mother  found  her  child  inside,  sitting 
quite  unhurt,  and  in  perfect  health,  with  an 
apple  before  him  on  a  stone  table.  So  she 
restored  the  treasure  gladly  and  took  away 
her  child. 

The  Antiquary,  of  course,  looks  at  these 
stories  from  his  own  point  of  view,  and  he 
argues  about  them  in  his  own  way.  All  the 
Catholic  character  of  this  legend  is,  he  says, 
nothing  but  an  aftergrowth.  In  his  view  the 
legend  is  one  of  some  Gaulish  sacrilege  and 
reparatory  oblation.  Some  offering  of  treas- 
ure must  have  been  sacrilegiously  removed, 
when  the  Gaulish  priests  required  a  daily 
oblation  (perhaps  of  milk  and  honey)  until  its 
restitution.  The  story  is  still  closely  con- 
nected with  a  stone  that  was  most  probably 
sacred,  and  has  been  rudely  shaped  into  its 
present  form  by  primitive  human  labor.  But 


The  Mount.  1 1 1 

the  Antiquary  confesses  himself  much  embar- 
rassed with  the  apple,  which,  he  thinks,  must 
have  some  significance,  if  only  it  were  dis- 
coverable. 

I  may  add  that  it  is  not  very  clearly  decided 
whether  the  milk  and  honey  fed  the  child 
himself,  or  the  Wivern  to  prevent  him  from 
destroying  the  child. 


H2  The  Mount. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

OUR  PEDESTRIANISM  —  A  HAMLET  NEAR  THE  MOUNT  — 
AUTHOR  TAKEN  FOR  A  PRUSSIAN  SPY  —  ART  GENER- 
ALLY SUPPOSED  TO  BE  AN  ABSURD  BUSINESS  —  BEAUTY 

OF  THE  OLD  HAMLET  —  LA    ROCHE    MILLAY  —  THE 
CHATEAU  AND  GARDEN  THERE  —  A  NIGHT  ADVENTURE 

—  ANOTHER   RETURN  FROM  THE   MOUNT  —  WANDER- 
INGS IN  SEARCH  OF  AN  OLD  PAIR  OF  FIRE-DOGS  —  THE 
CHATEAU    DU    JEU  —  ITS    GARDEN    AND    AVENUE  — 
CHATEAU  OF  A  SMALL  SQUIRE  —  MANNER  OF  LIFE  OF 
THE  SMALL  SQUIRES  IN  FORMER  TIMES  —  WE  SUP  AND 
SLEEP  IN  AN  UNINHABITED  HOUSE  —  THE  PIED-A-TERRE 

—  BENEFICIAL   ACTIVITY  —  WILD   BOARS    AND   OTHER 
ANIMALS  ON  THE  BEUVRAY. 

T  HAVE  said  something  already  about  the 
Antiquary's  pedestrian  powers,  which  have 
been  wonderfully  improved  and  cultivated  by 
his  summer  residence  on  the  Mount.  The 
summit  is  so  small  that  it  is  like  a  little  island 
high  in  the  air,  and  you  cannot  get  out  of  the 
island  without  hard  walking  down  hill,  which 
of  course  involves  a  corresponding  ascent, 
from  one  side  or  the  other,  on  your  return. 
Many  Parisians  who  live  at  the  tops  of 


The  Mount.  113 

houses  cultivate  pedestrianism  on  staircases, 
and  the  Antiquary  is  similarly  situated,  with 
the  difference  that  every  excursion  into  the 
outer  world  involves  for  him  a  descent  of 
seventeen  hundred  feet.  Just  at  first  it 
seemed  rather  hard  to  go  through  these  daily 
exercises  of  pedestrianism  in  obedience  to  the 
Antiquary's  various  projects  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  his  guests,  but  our  limbs  soon  got 
into  the  habit  of  climbing,  and  then  we  began 
to  see  the  matter  from  the  Antiquary's  point 
of  view,  or  in  other  words  to  think  nothing  of 
the  climb,  but  only  of  simple  distance,  as  if 
the  roads  to  Bibracte  had  all  been  perfectly 
level.  I  had  a  resource  for  all  solitary  excur- 
sions in  my  good  beast  Cocotte,  who  climbed 
like  a  mule,  but  without  his  obstinacy,  so  I 
often  left  the  Antiquary  with  his  diggers,  and 
set  forth  with  Cocotte  and  a  complete  sketch- 
ing apparatus  to  explore  the  country  in  any 
direction  that  I  pleased.  So  many  different 
old  Gaulish  roads  lead  to  the  summit, — there 
are  seven  of  them,  —  that  our  position  was 
very  central  with  these  radiating  from  us  in 
every  direction;  indeed  this  is  one  of  the 
peculiar  charms  and  privileges  of  the  Grand 
Hotel  des  Gaules,  as  we  facetiously  designate 


U4  The  Mount. 

the  Antiquary's  elevated  residence.  There 
are  two  or  three  hamlets  about  the  base  of 
the  Mount  which  have  remained  unaltered  for 
the  last  three  or  four  hundred  years,  and  one 
of  them,  Montmoret,  is  quite  astonishingly 
picturesque  —  so  picturesque  that  one  can 
hardly  believe  it  to  be  real.  It  has  everything 
to  help  it  in  the  surrounding  hill  scenery  and 
the  magnificent  old  chestnuts,  and  nothing 
whatever  to  spoil  the  artistic  impression  that 
it  produces.  There  is  one  steep,  tortuous 
street  with  the  richest  variety  of  rustic  con- 
struction, —  enormous  shadow-giving  projec- 
tions of  thatched  roofs  under  which  great 
teams  of  oxen  may  shelter  themselves  from 
the  sun  at  noon,  curious  external  staircases 
and  galleries,  picturesque  wells,  and  all  so 
perfectly  harmonious  in  color,  with  rich, 
warm  yellows  and  grays  that  glowed  in  the 
afternoon  sunshine,  and  only  wanted  green  to 
relieve  them,  which  was  given  abundantly  by 
the  chestnuts  and  the  vines.  The  Antiquary 
pointed  out  to  me  in  one  of  these  buildings 
exactly  the  Gaulish  principle  of  construction 
in  military  walls  of  defence  as  we  have  seen 
it  described  by  Caesar,  the  strong  oak  posts 
and  beams  with  regular  intervals  of  stone- 


The  Motint.  115 

work.  I  made  some  studies  at  Montmoret, 
returning  to  the  summit  of  the  Beuvray  every 
evening  in  time  for  a  late  dinner;  but  the 
Antiquary  had  kindly  accompanied  me  on 
the  first  of  these  occasions,  thinking  it  pro- 
bable, although  this  was  in  1874,  that  the 
peasants  when  they  saw  me  at  work  would 
take  me  for  a  Prussian  spy.  Without  the 
shelter  of  the  Antiquary's  well-known  and 
much-respected  name  it  would  be  difficult  to 
work  unmolested  in  these  hamlets  near  the 
Mount,  for  although  the  peasantry  are  both 
good-natured  and  polite,  they  are  placed  in  a 
difficult  position  when  they  see  an  artist  at 
work  from  nature,  and  this  leads  them  to 
wrong  conclusions.  The  motives  of  an  artist's 
labor  are  utterly  inconceivable  by  them,  and 
cannot  be  made  intelligible  to  them,  so  they 
are  compelled  by  the  defective  condition  of 
their  knowledge  to  infer  that  you  are  making 
a  map,  for  this  they  partly  understand.  The 
next  question  is  why  you  are  making  a  map, 
and  for  whom.  For  the  Prussians,  most 
likely,  and  when  they  become  persuaded  of 
this,  the  position  of  a  solitary  artist  is  not 
quite  safe  or  pleasant.  It  requires  all  the  tact 
and  address  that  one  may  be  master  of  to 


ii6  The  Mount. 

keep  things  tolerably  smooth,  and  allay  these 
suspicions  enough  to  permit  a  quiet  continu- 
ance of  work.  I  had  succeeded  in  doing  this 
for  some  hours  at  Montmoret  when  I  threw 
down  a  little  tube  that  I  had  been  using,  on 
which  was  the  following  inscription  :  — 

ROBERSON   AND   Go's 

MOISTWATER-COLOR 

CHINESE   WHITE 

—  99  — 
LONG   ACRE,   LONDON. 

It  instantly  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  com- 
mitted a  great  imprudence,  but  it  was  too  late 
to  be  remedied.  A  young  peasant  near  me 
seized  the  tube,  tried  to  read  the  inscription, 
perceived  that  it  was  in  a  foreign  language, 
and  then  said  to  his  comrades,  "  Ceci  n'est 
point  Fran9ais,  c'est  du  Prussicn  f  "  Every 
foreign  lano-uasfe  is  "  Prussian  "  for  the  French 

o  o       o 

peasantry.  However,  I  answered  with  the 
greatest  mildness  of  manner,  "  You  are  mis- 
taken, my  friend,  these  colors  are  not  Prus- 
sian, they  are  English ;  we  buy  them  of  the 
English  because  the  English  make  them  bet- 
ter than  anybody  else ;  the  Prussians  cannot 
make  them  nearly  so  well,  and  we  should  be 


The  Mount.  1 1 7 

silly,  indeed,  to  get  Prussian  colors  when  they 
are  not  so  good,  although  they  are  cheaper. 
These  English  colors  are  very  dear."  Then 
I  let  them  look  at  all  my  colors,  among  which, 
by  good  luck,  there  was  no  Prussian  blue,  for 
the  learned  young  man  who  could  read  would 
have  recognized  that  word  immediately.  And 
the  question  of  price  interested  them  very 
much,  as  I  find  that  the  prices  of  things  always 
do  interest  poor  people,  who  spend  nothing 
themselves  except  on  the  plainest  food  and 
clothing ;  so  Mr.  Roberson's  prices,  which 
seemed  enormous  to  my  hearers,  happily  got 
their  minds  off  that  Prussian  difficulty,  and 
allowed  me  to  blot  on  in  comparative  peace 
and  quietness.  But  it  is  not  quite  safe  even 
yet  to  sketch  about  a  French  hamlet,  although 
you  may  pass  for  a  Frenchman,  as  I  always 
do,  and  know  the  patois.  It  is  still  almost 
essential  to  be  accompanied,  at  least  on  your 
first  visit,  by  some  notable  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. An  artist  is,  however,  in  some  degree 
protected  against  violent  animosity  by  the 
ridicule  which  his  occupation  generally  draws 
down  upon  him.  After  a  good  deal  of  experi- 
ence in  different  countries,  I  have  been  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  art  must  be  an  absurd 


1 1 8  The  Mount. 

business,  for  everybody  seems  to  regard  it  with 
ridicule  mingled  with  pity.  Every  artist  who 
works  out  of  doors  has  anecdotes  of  his  own 
in  illustration  of  this.  A  peasant  who  had 
watched  Daubigny  at  work,  left  him  with  the 
observation,  "  II  n'y  a  pas  de  sot  metier,"  the 
meaning  of  which  is,  "  Although  a  trade  may 
be  foolish,  and  futile  in  itself,  a  man  is  not  a 
fool  for  pursuing  it  if  he  earns  bread  thereby." 
Another  spectator  encouraged  me  with  laugh- 
ing patronage,  "  Faites  done  !  faites  done  ! 
Vous  ne  faites  de  mal  a.  personne !  "  which 
signified  in  explicit  language,  "  Your  occupa- 
tion is  ridiculous,  but  pray  go  on  with  it,  for 
it  is  perfectly  harmless."  Sometimes,  how- 
ever, we  are  surprised  by  observations  from 
superior  though  uncultivated  minds.  A  man 
at  Montmoret,  with  a  gentle  and  intelligent 
face,  said  to  the  others,  "  This  is  a  thing  that 
we  are  unable  to  understand,  because  we  know 
so  little;  but  if  we  had  been  well  educated, 
then  we  should  have  seen  and  understood  a 
great  deal  more  about  this  work  than  is  pos- 
sible for  us  now."  There  was  the  precisely 
accurate  truth  about  the  matter,  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  a  peasant  who  could  say  that  was 
a. very  superior  man  by  nature,  for  the  noble 


The  Mount.  119 

acknowledgment  that  we  cannot  judge  unless 
we  know,  with  the  equally  noble  and  rare  ac- 
knowledgment that  we  do  not  know,  are  the 
two  first  conditions  for  a  beginning  of  profita- 
ble culture.1  On  hearing  this  it  occurred  to 
me  that  it  was  foolish  and  wrong  in  me  to  be 
vexed  with  the  ignorance  of  these  poor  people, 
instead  .of  making  some  effort  to  remove  it, 
though  such  an  effort  might  seem  well-nigh 
hopeless ;  however,  I  resolved  to  make  the 
attempt,  and  deliver  a  lecture  on  the  fine  arts 
to  an  audience  such  as  Mr.  Slade  certainly 
never  contemplated  when  he  established  his 
useful  professorships.  I  began  by  claiming, 
with  some  authority,  to  be  heard,  and  told  my 
audience  that  if  they  would  only  listen  they 
should  be  made  to  understand  something  that 
they  had  never  understood  before.  They  lis- 
tened attentively  enough,  quite  a  little  crowd 


i  I  once  met  with  a  market-gardener  on  a  small  scale  who 
had  never  seen  art  work  done,  and  I  went  with  another  artist 
to  sketch  in  his  garden,  from  which  things  of  great  interest 
were  to  be  seen.  I  never  was  more  astonished  than  by  the 
amazing  facility  with  which  he  entered  into  artistic  ideas.  He 
watched  us  at  work,  asked  all  sorts  of  intelligent  questions, 
and  after  four  such  sittings  had  got  more  art  knowledge  out  of 
us  than  most  people  who  are  educated  contrive  to  gather  in  a 
lifetime. 


I2O  The  Mount. 

of  them,  so  whilst  sketching  steadily  all  the 
time,  I  gave  them  a  lecture  on  the  difference 
between  making  a  map  and  making  a  study, 
and  when  I  had  done,  there  were  at  least  half 
a  dozen  of  the  most  intelligent  who  had  clearly 
understood  me,  and  these  six  explained  the 
matter  over  again  very  clearly  to  the  duller 
ones.  There  is  a  vast  difference  in  rapidity 
of  apprehension  between  these  peasants  and 
the  English  agricultural  laborer.  The  Mor- 
van  peasant  is  almost  inconceivably  ignorant, 
but  he  is  extremely  quick  and  bright.  Some 
of  my  hearers  were  facetious  about  the  honor 
done  to  their  little  hamlet  in  being  thus  set 
down  on  paper.  "  This  great  capital  city," 
said  one  of  them,  "  has  never  been  so  honored 
since  it  was  built."  I  asked  how  many  inhab- 
itants there  were.  Nobody  knew  exactly,  but 
one  clever-looking  young  fellow  said  it  was 
easy  enough  to  count,  and  went  through  the 
place,  house  by  house,  from  memory,  naming 
every  individual  inhabitant,  and  adding  them 
by  families  as  he  went  along  till  he  arrived 
finally  at  the  total,  which  was  one  hundred  and 
eighteen.  In  a  hamlet  like  this  every  one 
knows  everybody  else,  and  there  is  a  familiar 
fellowship  which  is  charming,  or  would  be  so 


The  Mount.  121 

if  they  were  not  almost  invariably  accompanied 
by  neighborly  hatreds  and  jealousies.  Life 
runs  in  this  little  quiet  corner  as  it  has  done  for 
a  thousand  years,  but  ten  years  hence  modern- 
ism will  have  invaded  it.  I  found  one  little 
building  with  staring,  new  red  tiles,  and  that 
is  the  beginning  of  the  end.  La  Roche  Mil- 
lay,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Mount,  must  have 
been  well  worth  sketching  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
for  a  strong  castle  with  many  towers  occupied 
the  summit  of  a  rock  perfectly  inaccessible  on 
three  sides.  This  castle  was  replaced  under 
the  Regency  by  a  large  mansion  of  that  time, 
a  very  good  specimen  of  the  Renaissance 
chateau,  with  the  great,  bare,  comfortless,  lofty 
rooms  that  the  experienced  traveller  in  France 
always  expects  in  edifices  of  that  style  and 
time.  I  have  just  said  they  were  comfortless, 
but  they  have  one  comfort  in  the  hot  Bur- 
gundy summer,  —  they  are  delightfully  cool. 
The  wife  of  the  present  owner  never  came 
near  it,  not  even  to  visit  the  place  en  touriste  ; 
however,  she  at  last  allowed  herself  to  be  per- 
suaded, and  when  once  she  had  visited  La 
Roche  it  became  her  favorite  residence  till 
her  death,  which  occurred  very  shortly  after- 
wards. It  is  a  most  romantic  and  peculiar 


122  The  Mount. 

place.  The  old  castle  was  occupied  by  a 
tremendously  powerful  feudal  seigneur,  and  it 
is  quite  the  nest  for  a  falcon  of  that  breed,  as 
he  would  easily  impose  tolls  on  passengers  in 
the  narrow  glen.  Just  on  the  other  side  rose 
the  Castle  of  Touleur,  on  a  rocky  height  now 
densely  wooded,  and  the  Beuvray  stands  be- 
hind in  considerable  majesty  —  the  Beuvray 
on  whose  high  and  narrow  table-land  these 
mighty  barons  were  wont  to  meet  for  their 
tournament  of  May.  Only  one  tower  remains 
of  the  old  castle  of  La  Roche,  but  as  regret 
for  its  destruction  was  useless,  I  set  myself  to 
enjoy  the  quaint  garden,  which  was  beauti- 
fully kept,  but  unaltered  from  its  first  design, 
a  formal  design  contemporary  with  the  present 
mansion.  Huge  walls,  covered  with  flowers, 
sustain  the  high  terraces,  and  you  have  gar- 
den below  garden,  each  in  numberless  parallel 
beds,  with  curved  outlines  answering  in  their 
general  arrangement  to  the  curve  of  the  great 
walls. 

I  confess  to  an  old-fashioned  liking  for  for- 
mality in  gardens.  I  like  a  wilderness  to  be 
as  wild  as  possible,  and  a  garden  to  be  as 
formal  and  regular  as  art  can  make  it,  with 
no  possibility  of  slovenliness.  This  was  the 


Mount.  123 


mediaeval  theory,  and  the  Renaissance  theory 
also,  with  other  forms  ;  it  has  been  reserved 
for  recent  experimentalists  to  aim  at  a  natural 
variety  and  wildness,  which  can  never  be  sat- 
isfactory to  any  one  who  has  access  to  nature 
itself.  At  a  place  like  La  Roche  Millay, 
where  nature  is  grand  and  wild  in  rock 
and  mountain,  and  stream  and  tree,  it  is  as- 
tonishing how  pleasantly  the  formal  garden 
attracts  us  by  its  discipline  and  rule,  by  its 
beds  in  determined  shapes,  and  its  flowers  in 
brilliant  regiments,  for  in  the  heart  of  nature 
we  like  to  be  reminded  of  humanity  and  of 
orderly  pleasure  and  state. 

We  cannot  always  linger  upon  the  Mount, 
so  a  day  has  to  be  fixed  for  our  departure  ;  but 
when  we  have  started  on  our  way  home,  there 
is  no  telling  when  we  shall  get  there,  for  the 
Antiquary  and  I  are  travellers  of  a  most 
uncertain  and  unreliable  description.  Once  a 
friend  of  ours  asked  us  to  go  and  see  a  very 
beautiful  property  of  his  and  dine  with  him, 
after  which  he  was  to  accompany  us  to  Autun. 
We  went,  accordingly,  to  see  the  place  and 
accept  his  hospitality,  and  left  rather  late  for 
a  drive  of  more  than  twenty  miles  home. 
Now  it  happened  that  the  Antiquary  was 


124  The  Mount. 

bringing  away  the  piece  of  old  tapestry  from 
the  Mount,  so  he  lay  down  on  this  tapestry 
in  the  stern  of  my  vehicle.  I  have  already 
remarked  that  on  the  Mount  we  have  bad 
habits  in  the  way  of  sleep,  that  we  go  to  bed 
very  late  and  get  up  very  early,  so  that  there 
is  a  strong  tendency  to  get  compensation 
afterwards.  This  was  now  the  Antiquary's 
position.  Having  slept  insufficiently  for 
many  days  he  could  not  resist  the  attraction 
of  the  soft  tapestry,  but  immediately  lost  in 
dreams  all  consciousness  of  his  present  situa- 
tion. I  was  coachman,  of  course,  and  our 
friend  and  host  was  to  sit  at  my  left  hand  and 
guide  me.  Now,  the  peculiarity  of  our  posi- 
tion was  this,  the  Antiquary  knew  the  road, 
but  was  fast  asleep ;  our  friend  knew  the  road, 
but  he  had  drunk  just  one  bottle  too  much 
whilst  exercising  the  duties  of  hospitality.  I 
was  sober  and  awake,  but  utterly  ignorant  of 
the  road,  and  the  night  was  so  dark  that  we 
could  see  nothing  beyond  the  limited  range 
of  the  lanterns.  My  companion  got  into  a 
most  interesting  conversation  about  artistic 
subjects,  which  he  has  studied  and  under- 
stands, so  when  we  came  to  puzzling  places 
where  several  roads  met  or  forked  off  in  dif- 


The  Mount.  125 

ferent  directions,  it  plagued  him  to  be  inter- 
rupted, and  he  told  me  to  go  right  or  left  very 
much  by  chance,  whilst  he  described  the  prac- 
tice of  a  great  artist  whom  he  had  known  in 
other  days.  I  felt  that  there  was  some  uncer- 
tainty in  his  indications,  but  he  was  there  to 
guide  me,  and  the  responsibility  rested  with 
him.  After  some  hours  of  rather  rapid  trot- 
ting, finding  that  we  approached  no  nearer  to 
any  place  that  was  known  to  me,  I  resolved 
to  pull  up  and  consult  the  Antiquary,  so  I 
shook  him  out  of  his  blissful  dreams  upon  the 
tapestry,  and  said  that,  having  no  longer  any 
confidence  in  our  late  host,  I  begged  for  bet- 
ter advice.  The  Antiquary  got  up  and  first 
examined  the  width  of  the  road  to  see  what 
class  of  road  we  were  on,  then  he  looked  up 
at  the  stars,  a  few  of  which  were  visible,  finally 
he  ascertained  that  we  were  near  a  wood. 
But  this  was  all  he  could  make  out,  so  in  spite 
of  two  furious  dogs  he  courageously  went  to 
a  farm-house  and  awoke  the  people,  who  gave 
him  information.  It  appeared  that  we  had 
been  driving  in  a  great  circle  (which  the  nau- 
tical reader  need  not  confound  with  the  art  of 
Great  Circle  sailing),  and  were  now  within 
three  miles  of  the  place  from  which  we  had 


126  The  Mount. 

set  forth.  The  consequence  of  this  was  that 
we  wandered  the  whole  night  and  only  got 
home  about  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  to 
incur  the  most  satirical  observations  from  our 
respective  households.  If  the  reader  suspects 
that  the  Antiquary  and  I  had  obscured  our 
brains  with  Burgundy  he  will  do  us  a  grievous 
injustice,  but  a  legend  to  that  effect  got  credit 
in  those  parts. 

On  another  of  our  returns  from  the  Mount 
we  were  led  into  adventures  of  another  kind. 
The  Antiquary  has  always  some  curiosity  in 
view,  and  this  time  it  was  a  pair  of  fire-dogs 
which  existed  in  a  chateau  somewhere  between 
the  setting  sun  and  the  rising  moon,  if  we 
could  only  find  it.  Neither  of  us  had  ever 
been  there,  neither  of  us  had  anything  but 
vague  indications.  We  knew  that  the  said 
chateau  was  in  another  department  and  in 
another  province,  but  we  hoped  to  come  upon 
it  ultimately,  and  so  set  forth  on  the  quest. 
When  the  Antiquary  is  once  in  motion,  with 
an  old  bit  of  brass  or  iron  for  the  object  of 
his  travels,  he  will  go  on  quite  indefinitely ;  so 
I  knew  there  was  little  chance  of  our  arrival 
at  any  comfortable  lodging  for  that  night,  and 
regretted  not  to  have  a  tent  with  me  in  the 


The  Mount.  127 

carriage,  a  precaution  I  sometimes  take  in 
uncertain  travels  in  the  Morvan.  It  rather 
amused  me  to  surrender  myself  quite  abso- 
lutely to  the  Antiquary's  guidance,  and  see 
what  would  be  the  end  of  the  adventure.  The 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  request  me  to  leave 
the  good  high-road  under  pretext  of  making 
a  remarkably  short  cut  which  was  to  land  us 
several  miles  nearer  to  our  supposed  destina- 
tion. I  never  like  to  hear  of  short  cuts  when 
I  am  driving,  especially  when  the  vehicle  has 
four  wheels  and  is  inclined  to  be  top-heavy. 
Short  cuts  are  nice  for  pedestrians,  and  not 
disagreeable  when  you  are  on  horseback,  but 
it  is  pleasanter  to  drive  on  good  macadam 
than  over  granite  boulders  and  through 
ditches  and  marshy  places.  The  Antiquary 
first  made  me  go  down  into  a  hollow  which 
was  flooded  with  water,  that  made  the  road 
exactly  like  a  pond,  and  when  we  got  out  of 
that  a  hillock  rose  before  us  covered  with 
blocks  of  granite  the  size  of  an  arm-chair  with 
scarcely  a  perceptible  passage.  A  mile  farther 
a  gigantic  chestnut,  which  had  been  felled, 
blocked  up  the  road  entirely,  so  the  Antiquary 
led  Cocotte  into  a  cornfield  under  pretext  of 
turning  the  obstacle,  but  finally  found  himself 


128  The  Mount. 

unable  either  to  advance  or  to  recede,  so  we  had 
to  take  the  animal  out  of  the  carriage  and  back 
out  of  it,  after  which  we  went  through  another 
field.  All  along  this  road  the  scenery  was 
quite  delightful,  there  were  remarkable  num- 
bers of  fine  chestnuts,  with  rocks  and  hills 
and  a  lake.  Farther  on  we  came  to  a  chateau 
near  a  clump  of  Alpine  firs  on  rocky  ground, 
and  this  house,  whose  name  dates  from  the 
Romans  {Chateau  du  Jeu,  Jovis)  has  the 
most  magnificent  hedge  I  ever  beheld.  This 
hedge  is  all  of  hornbeam,  about  twenty  feet 
high  and  perhaps  a  thousand  yards  long,  in  all, 
a  great  massive  wall  of  verdure  with  arcades 
cut  in  it,  and  so  regular  a  surface  that  it  looks 
as  if  it  had  been  built,  and  as  if  you  could 
walk  on  its  broad  and  level  top.  Here  again 
my  taste  for  formality  in  gardens  was  fully 
gratified.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  wall  of  ver- 
dure like  that,  with  its  arcades  and  regularly 
dressed  surface  carries  out  the  architecture  of 
the  mansion  in  a  manner  which  wild  nature 
never  can  do,  and  I  greatly  enjoyed  and 
approved  at  the  Chateau  du  Jeu  this  transition 
from  the  perfect  wildness  of  the  pine  grove 
with  its  rocks,  that  looked  exactly  like  an 
Alpine  foreground,  to  the  ordered  symmetry 


The  Mount.  129 

of  architecture  in  stone.  Gardening  of  this 
kind  is  a  true  response  to  architecture,  and 
exactly  the  intermediary  that  is  needed  be- 
tween the  lordly  mansion  and  the  wilderness. 
I  may  just  add  that  Turner  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated the  peculiar  artistic  value  of  such  arti- 
ficial gardening  as  this.  See  how  absolutely 
artificial  is  the  garden  with  the  great  jet-deau 
in  the  vignette  before  the  Pleasures  of  Mem- 
ory! There  is  an  arcade  of  hornbeam  there 
too,  but  not  so  lofty  nor  so  long  as  the  real 
one  that  I  have  just  described. 

Other  considerations  were  suggested  by  this 
peculiarly  beautiful  place.  It  is  approached 
by  an  avenue  of  chestnuts,  perhaps  a  mile 
long,  and  very  well  grown,  though  not  yet  old 
enough  for  the  trees  to  have  attained  their 
perfect  majesty.  Now  this  avenue  both  gained 
and  lost  much  by  a  certain  peculiarity.  It  was 
not  straight,  as  French  avenues  usually  are, 
but  as  serpentine  as  the  winding  of  a  river. 
Here  again  I  decidedly  prefer  the  more  for- 
mal arrangement,  the  straight  line,  whilst  fully 
admitting  the  charm  of  a  slow  and  slight  curve 
in  an  avenue  after  a  straight  line.  There  is  an 
effect  of  this  kind  in  the  magnificent  abbatial 
Church  of  Vezelay,  where  the  ground  plan  of 

9 


130  The  Mount. 

the  stone  avenue  of  columns  is  curved  to  one 
side  with  a  result  in  perspective  that  the 
reader  will  immediately  understand.  Such  a 
curve  explains  better  than  any  other  device 
the  distance  between  the  columns  or  the  trees, 
and  in  a  sylvan  avenue  it  is  delightful  to  see 
the  increasing  spaces  in  the  curve  which  fol- 
low a  regular  order  of  increase,  no  two  spaces 
equal,  yet  all  subject  to  one  law.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  the  curves  are  too  frequent 
and  too  rapid  you  have  no  vista,  which  is  a 
lamentable  defect  of  the  avenue  at  the  beauti- 
ful Chateau  du  Jeu.  On  entering  it  I  had  no 
notion  that  it  was  important  enough  to  be 
worth  notice,  but  expected  that  it  would  come 
to  an  end  after  the  first  curve.  Then  came  a 
number  of  other  short  curves,  always  with  the 
same  expectation,  and  it  was  only  after  much 
driving  that  I  perceived  how  noble  an  avenue 
it  was.  Nor  did  the  mansion  gain  anything 
in  stateliness  from  this  approach.  It  was  like 
marching  up  to  a  fortress  in  the  zigzags  of 
trenches,  without  seeing  anything  till  you 
come  close  under  the  walls. 

It  was  quite  dark  when  we  came  at  length 
to  the  mansion  of  the  fire-dogs  which  were 
the  object  of  the  Antiquary's  quest.  It  was 


The  Mount.  131 

guarded  and  inhabited  by  one  lonely  old 
woman,  though  there  were  men  in  the  adjacent 
farm-buildings  to  prevent  her  from  dying  of 
fear,  and  this  old  woman  was  in  bed  on  our 
untimely  arrival ;  but  nothing  can  deter  an 
Antiquary,  so  he  cruelly  awoke  her  by  making 
a  burglarious  noise  at  the  window  and  pro- 
nouncing the  name  of  the  absent  Chatelaine 
with  an  air  of  irresistible  authority.  The  poor 
old  thing  dressed  in  great  haste,  and  admitted 
us  into  a  lofty  but  narrow  chamber  with  the 
mingled  furniture  of  a  kitchen,  a  sitting-room, 
and  a  bedroom,  all  of  it  old  and  quaint  like 
the  inhabitant.  I  began  to  wonder  whether 
the  scene  before  me  was  a  real  scene,  or 
whether  this  were  not  some  odd  volume  of  a 
romance  that  I  was  reading.  The  Antiquary 
did  all  the  business  of  the  interview,  so  I  was 
quite  free  to  look  on  as  a  simple  spectator,  and 
this  left  me  a  prey  to  a  very  strong  feeling  of 
illusion.  The  whole  adventure  was 'perfectly 
in  the  spirit  of  Scott,  and  might  have  been 
transplanted  just  as  it  was  into  the  Chronicles 
of  the  Canongate  without  any  sense  of  the 
incongruous.  Every  visible  thing  except  our- 
selves was  at  least  a  hundred  years  old,  not 
a  great  age  certainly  in  comparison  with  the 


132  The  Mount. 

Gaulish  antiquities  of  the  Mount,  but  enough 
to  give  a  great  air  of  quaintness  to  everyday 
household  gear.  The  old  woman  led  us  into 
four  very  vast  and  lofty  chambers,  in  one  of 
which  was  the  pair  of  fire-dogs  that  had 
brought  us  to  the  place.  They  were  of  brass, 
and  represented  the  towers  and  curtain-walls 
of  a  fortress,  with  cannon  all  in  position,  the 
work  being  Louis  Quinze,  elaborate  enough, 
but  not  particularly  elegant.  In  countries 
where  wood  is  burnt  the  fire-dogs  are  often 
very  splendid  and  highly  wrought  with  fanci- 
ful ornament  and  invention,  but  I  have  seen 
much  better  examples  than  these  brazen 
towers  with  the  little  cannons  firing  away  from 
the  battlements  like  toy  guns.  When  we 
came  away,  I  looked  at  the  house  from  the 
outside,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
was  only  just  room  in  it  for  the  great  cham- 
bers that  we  had  seen.  The  Antiquary  con- 
firmed this  opinion,  and  when  I  asked  how  the 
family  in  former  times  could  manage  with  so 
few  rooms,  he  told  me  that  in  the  class  of  small 
squires  life  in  a  country  house  was  arranged 
down  to  the  end  of  the  last  century  very  much 
as  it  is  still  in  the  houses  of  the  peasantry. 
There  were  four  large  beds  in  each  room,  one 


The  Mount.  133 

in  each  corner,  forming  with  its  four  posts  and 
its  curtains  a  sort  of  independent  tent,  whilst 
the  space  in  the  middle  of  the  room  was  left 
vacant  for  daily  habitation.  Guests  of  both 
sexes  occupied  beds  in  the  master's  own 
chamber.  This  led  us  into  a  conversation 
about  the  changes  of  manners  and  customs 
within  the  last  seventy  or  eighty  years,  and 
we  agreed  that  although  modern  dwellings 
were  apparently  less  spacious,  they  were  infi- 
nitely more  convenient  and  much  better  ad- 
apted to  the  requirements  of  civilized  existence 
than  the  chateaux  of  the  old  French  squires. 
They  had  no  idea  of  the  comfort  of  indepen- 
dence in  a  room,  and  with  their  system  of 
living  privacy  was  utterly  unattainable  and 
unknown,  as  it  is  still  in  the  houses  of  the 
peasantry.  They  had  not  separate  bedrooms, 
a  dressing-room  was  undreamt  of,  and  the  idea 
that  it  was  desirable  to  get  into  one  room 
without  passing  through  another  does  not 
seem  to  have  presented  itself  to  their  imagina- 
tion. How  ladies  and  gentlemen  ever  man- 
aged to  get  a  thorough  washing  where  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  privacy,  seems  inexpli- 
cable. The  Antiquary's  explanation  is  that 
they  omitted  the  ceremony  altogether,  which 


134  The  Mount. 

appears  to  be  the  plain  and  simple  truth. 
Surely  the  great  practical  purpose  of  a  house 
is  to  give  facilities  for  civilized  human  life,  for 
cleanliness,  for  decency,  for  study,  and  not 
one  of  these  is  attainable  without  privacy. 
Every  good  modern  house  has  these,  and 
therefore  in  practical  service  to  civilization  it 
is  superior  to  such  minor  chateaux  as  the  one 
we  visited  that  night. 

But  where  were  we  to  sleep?  The  Anti- 
quary had  a  private  theory  of  his  own  on  this 
subject,  and  I  submitted  to  him  as  com- 
mander of  the  expedition.  We  drove  many 
miles  in  the  dark,  along  roads  entirely  un- 
known to  me,  and  stopped  at  last  before  a 
house  near  the  road-side,  when  the  Antiquary 
lifted  his  voice.  A  man  looked  out  of  the 
upper  window  with  a  candle,  and  shortly  re- 
appeared on  our  own  level.  A  whiter  man  I 
never  remember  to  have  seen.  His  cotton 
night-cap  was  white,  his  hair  was  white,  his 
beard  was  white,  his  shirt,  trowsers,  stockings, 
were  white,  and  so  was  the  candle  in  his  hand. 
Everything  about  him  was  white  except  his 
slippers,  which  were  of  a  pale  yellow.  He 
looked  very  nice  and  clean,  and  was  most 
hospitable,  pressing  us  earnestly  to  stay  all 


The  Mount.  135 

night  in  his  house  and  offering  us  a  supper. 
The  Antiquary  declined  with  the  greatest 
firmness,  and  then  the  white  man  handed  him 
a  key,  and  said,  "  Well,  you 'd  much  better 
have  stayed  here ;  however,  I  wish  you  a  good- 
night." On  we  went  for  another  mile,  and 
then  by  the  Antiquary's  orders  I  turned  up  a 
narrow  lane,  happily  not  long,  and  we  arrived 
in  a  great  straggling  farm-yard  with  a  quaint 
pigeon-cote  tower  and  a  rough-looking  sort 
of  mansion  on  one  side,  with  two  very  ugly 
and  awkward  staircases  all  covered  with 
grass  and  tall  weeds.  The  house  looked  as 
if  it  had  never  been  opened  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest  sign  of 
human  habitation. 

First  the  Antiquary  put  Cocotte  into  one 
corner  of  a  big  stable,  and  then  he  led  me  up 
one  of  the  stone  staircases,  and  opened  an  old 
oak  door  studded  with  big-headed  iron  nails. 
We  entered  a  big  desolate  room  with  beds  in 
alcoves,  and  appearances  as  if  the  last  inhab- 
itants had  quitted  it  in  some  precipitation. 
After  this  room  was  a  suite  of  three  others, 
and  in  the  last  of  these  was  another  bed  and 
a  very  large  couch  or  settee  covered  with 
faded  tapestry  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII. 


136  The  Mount. 

Not  a  living  soul  was  visible  about  the  place. 
When  we  came  to  the  last  chamber  the  Anti- 
quary said,  "  This  will  be  your  room,"  and 
left  me  there  with  a  candle.  Soon  afterwards 
he  reappeared  with  a  strong,  gaunt  woman 
from  the  next  farm,  and  she  very  soon  lighted 
two  great  fires.  There  was  a  strange,  musty 
smell  in  the  rooms,  as  if  no  window  had  been 
opened  for  a  century;  so  we  opened  every 
window,  heaped  logs  on  the  blazing  fires,  and 
changed  the  air  as  thoroughly  as  we  could. 
The  woman  spread  a  clean  table-cloth  on  the 
table  in  my  room,  put  clean  sheets  on  the 
beds,  and  the  Antiquary  soon  produced  all 
necessary  table  utensils  and  two  bottles  of 
excellent  wine.  Supper  was  served  at  mid- 
night, and  we  had  eaten  nothing  whatever 
since  breakfast  on  the  Mount,  having  been 
travelling  the  whole  time ;  so  we  did  justice  to 
the  simple  repast  before  us,  though  with  re- 
gret, perhaps,  for  the  culinary  abilities  of  Pau- 
chard,  whom  we  had  left  in  his  lofty  dwelling. 
The  explanation  of  this  mysterious  unin- 
habited house  in  which  the  Antiquary  con- 
ducted himself  so  independently  was  simply 
that  it  belonged  to  him,  with  a  particularly 
beautiful  little  estate  of  five  hundred  acres, 


The  Mount.  137 

and  that  he  kept  a  little  furniture  in  these 
rooms  and  a  few  bottles  of  wine  for  chance 
occasions  like  the  present.  A  Frenchman 
likes  what  he  calls  a  pied-a-terre,  that  is  to  say, 
two  or  three  rooms  of  his  own  where  he  can 
establish  himself  in  a  temporary  home,  and  be 
independent  of  everybody;  nor  does  he  con- 
sider it  essential  to  his  happiness  that  the 
rooms  should  be  luxurious,  or  that  servants 
should  be  kept  in  them  during  his  absence. 
A  town  pied-a-terre  is  usually  a  single  floor  in 
a  large  house  that  is  divided  into  flats  and 
guarded  by  a  porter;  a  country  pied-a-terre  is 
usually  a  small  house  close  to  farm  buildings 
and  guarded  by  the  farmer.  People  who  live 
in  towns  have  a  country  pied-a-terre,  and 
country  folks  have  one  in  the  town.  The 
Antiquary's  principal  residence  is  in  the  town, 
but  he  has  three  country  residences,  where  he 
can  be  as  comfortable  as  he  cares  to  be  for 
weeks  at  a  time,  and  even  receive  guests  hos- 
pitably. The  glorious  Mount  is  one  of  them, 
this  farm  is  another,  and  the  third  is  in  the 
vine  lands  on  a  vineyard  estate  of  his.  As 
each  of  these  is  within  a  day's  drive  of  the 
town  house,  the  Antiquary  can  easily  visit 
them  whenever  he  likes.  The  system  is  not 


138  The  Mount. 

exceedingly  expensive,  and  a  man  always  feels 
infinitely  more  at  home  in  rooms  of  his  own 
than  he  possibly  can  do  at  an  inn.  The  feel- 
ing of  being  chez  soi  has  a  great  charm.  It 
is  this  which  constitutes  the  delight  of  yachts 
and  tents,  —  to  have  variety  of  surroundings 
and  still  be  under  your  own  roof,  even  when 
that  roof  is  only  of  wood  or  canvas.  There  is 
sometimes  a  good  deal  of  friction  in  these 
arrangements,  unless  they  are  superintended 
by  some  one  who  has  had  experience  in  the 
organization  of  independent  ways  of  living, 
and  who  can  both  look  to  details  and  set 
things  right  with  his  own  hands.  Now  I 
venture  to  affirm  that  the  Antiquary  and  I 
are  both  of  us  more  than  commonly  compe- 
tent in  the  art  of  making  a  rough  temporary 
residence  habitable,  for  we  have  both  had  a 
good  deal  of  practice,  without  which  people 
always  bungle  sadly  in  these  matters,  and  we 
have  also  a  natural  liking  for  the  sort  of 
activity  which  they  call  for.  The  reader  who 
has  never  found  himself  compelled  to  make 
arrangements  for  his  own  comfort  will 
scarcely  conceive  what  a  beneficial  influence 
such  labors  have  both  on  mind  and  body. 
They  entirely  relieve  the  mind  from  intellect- 


The  Mount. 


139 


ual  strain  and  from  the  habit  of  reflection 
which  pursues  the  student  like  his  own 
shadow,  whilst  they  give  it  solidity  and  ballast 
by  compelling  its  strict  attention  to  material 
necessities  and  things.  "  If  I  could  but  work 
with  my  hands,"  said  an  accomplished  scholar, 
"  it  would  be  such  a  blessing  to  me !  "  Now 
what  he  instinctively  felt  to  be  desirable,  the 
Antiquary  and  I  value  from  happy  experience. 
We  find  that  the  activities  of  a  rougher  and 
more  self-dependent  life  are  good  for  us  after 
the  ease  of  home.  We  find  that  any  fatigues 
and  privations  we  have  to  incur  are  just  suf- 
ficient to  keep  us  in  good  humor  by  the 
effort  of  the  mind  to  react  against  them. 
The  Antiquary  is  certain  that  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  health  and  strength  has  been  in  a 
great  measure  due  to  his  work  on  the  Mount, 
which  has  supplied  the  great  desideratum  for 
beneficial  exercise,  a  purpose  outside  of  itself. 
If  I  have  a  criticism  to  make  upon  his  pres- 
ent arrangements,  it  is  that  they  are  becom- 
ing rather  too  convenient  and  too  comfortable, 
and  that  his  little  mountain  establishment 
displays  each  year  some  improvement  which 
removes  it  faster  from  the  character  of  a 
camp ;  but  I  trust  it  is  safe  from  the  invasion 


140  The  Mount. 

of  easy-chairs  and  carpets,  whilst  French 
polish  will  be  long  unknown  there,  and  unless 
by  chance  some  specimen  of  it  be  discover- 
able upon  a  gun-stock  or  a  pistol-case.  The 
tapestry  on  the  walls  is  perhaps  an  allowable 
piece  of  luxury,  for  it  has  a  certain  wild 
grandeur  in  harmony  with  the  sylvan  sur- 
roundings of  the  place.  The  subject  being  a 
forest  scene,  with  quaint  mediaeval  figures,  it  is 
possible  to  imagine  that  this  forest  of  patient 
needlework  may  have  represented  some  sweet 
glade  of  the  Mount  itself,  when  knight  and 
baron  chased  over  it  with  hawk  and  hound. 
Even  in  our  own  time  there  is  many  a  lair  of 
wolf  and  wild  boar  within  a  league  of  the 
Antiquary's  huts.  Sometimes  there  is  a  great 
hunt,  and  on  the  last  of  these  occasions  more 
than  twenty  wild  boars  were  killed.  There 
are  deer  too,  and  foxes,  for  many  wild  animals 
breed  within  or  without  the  ancient  walls  of 
Bibracte,  no  longer  fearing  the  throng  of 
armies  or  the  noise  of  battle  after  twenty 
centuries  of  silence. 


A  U  T  U  N. 


AUTUN. 

« — 

I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

TF  the  reader  will  take  a  map  of  France,  he 
•^  will  see  that  the  Saone  and  the  Rhone 
make  a  line  in  the  east  side  of  the  country 
which  goes  almost  due  south  to  Marseilles, 
whilst  the  Loire,  on  the  contrary,  begins  by 
flowing  from  south  to  north,  and  then  shows 
a  strong  westward  tendency,  sometimes  go- 
ing westward  suddenly,  and  then  resuming 
its  northern  direction,  but  at  last  making 
a  magnificent  curve  in  the  region  about 
Orleans,  and  after  this  curve  going  very 
decidedly  to  the  Atlantic.  The  southern- 
flowing  rivers,  Saone  and  Rhone,  which  form 
a  single  watercourse,  and  the  young  northern- 
flowing  Loire,  are  for  a  time  very  near  neigh- 
bors, the  distance  from  one  to  the  other,  as 
a  bird  flies,  being  less  than  thirty  miles  in 
the  department  of  the  Loire.  After  that  the 


144  Autun. 

distance  widens  as  you  travel  northwards,  but 
still  the  two  watercourses  keep  neighborly ; 
and  they  both  run  across  the  department  of 
Saone  et  Loire,  in  which  the  Loire  flows 
about  seventy  miles  and  the  Saone  eighty. 

The  country  that  lies  between  these  rivers 
is  interesting  in  many  ways.  It  includes  the 
whole  department  of  the  Rhone,  part  of  the 
department  of  the  Loire,  and  three-quarters 
of  Saone  et  Loire,  a  region  in  which  the  scen- 
ery is  varied,  and  the  marks  of  human  history 
sufficiently  numerous  to  answer  a  traveller's 
expectations.  The  physical  geography  has 
very  decided  features.  There  are  the  two 
great  rivers,  important  even  at  that  distance 
from  the  sea,  and  hills  which  are  almost 
mountains,  rising  to  about  3,300  feet  above 
the  sea-level,  and  about  2,800  feet  above  the 
water  of  the  Rhone.  The  forms  of  these 
hills  are  sometimes  fine,  sometimes  monoto- 
nous, but  they  always  have  the  advantage  of 
giving  good  distances,  especially  in  that  state 
of  the  atmosphere,  very  common  in  France, 
when  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  mist  in 
the  air,  hardly  perceptible  in  itself,  yet  just 
sufficient  to  give  a  sense  of  wide  space  and 
remoteness. 


Autun.  145 

A  pedestrian  travelling  over  the  highest 
land  in  this  region,  and  keeping  between 
the  two  rivers,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  at 
an  equal  distance  from  both  of  them,  would 
ultimately  reach  a  lofty  table-land  which  ends 
very  abruptly  to  the  north,  not  exactly  in 
precipices,  but  in  very  steep  slopes  densely 
wooded.  Just  before  the  table-land  comes 
to  this  sudden  termination,  it  bears  upon 
its  ample  surface  a  magnificent  park,  rich 
in  fine  old  timber,  with  lakes  surrounded 
by  what  seems  a  natural  forest,  and  an  old 
chateau,  not  a  castle,  but  a  spacious  old  man 
sion  enclosing  three  sides  of  a  quadrangle, 
and  containing  a  great  number  of  rooms  hung 
with  old  tapestry,  a  decoration  more  abun- 
dant in  this  chateau  of  Montjeu  than  in  any 
other  house  of  equal  size  that  I  ever  visited. 
The  house  is  at  the  head  of  a  deep  ravine, 
crossed  by  a  wall  of  great  height  and  strength, 
and  above  the  wall  the  ravine  is  filled  up 
so  as  to  present  broad  flat  areas  of  garden 
ground,  laid  out  in  the  old  French  style,  from 
which  there  is  a  view  over  a  vast  expanse 
of  hilly  country,  the  view  being  enclosed  by 
masses  of  trees  on  each  side  of  it,  as  a  theat- 
rical scene  is  by  its  coulisses.  But  this  is  not 


146  A  lit  tin. 

the  view  in  which  we  are  likely  to  be  chiefly 
interested. 

Suppose  that  our  pedestrian  leaves  the 
chateau  behind  him,  and  crosses  the  park 
to  the  northern  gate  (which  is  more  than 
two  miles  from  the  house),  he  still  finds 
himself,  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  park,  on 
ground  which  is  either  perfectly  level  or  very 
gently  undulated.  When,  however,  he  issues 
from  the  park  by  the  north  gate,  he  has  be- 
fore him  a  very  different  scene.  The  land 
suddenly  falls  in  a  slope  so  steep  that  the  road 
down  it  is  a  zigzag  like  those  in  the  Alps ; 
and  far  below,  as  you  look  over  the  tops  of 
the  trees,  you  see  a  hill  rising  with  a  city 
upon  it,  and  beyond  the  city  a  plain  bounded 
by  distant  hills  and  watered  by  a  gleaming 
river  that  washes  the  lowest  portion  of  the 
walls. 

It  is  the  city  of  Augustus,  Augustodunum, 
now  abbreviated  to  Autun.  Like  its  name, 
the  city  itself  has  been  reduced  into  a  much 
smaller  compass ;  but  as  the  name  still  re- 
tains etymological  vestiges  of  its  origin,  so 
the  place  itself  bears  traces  of  the  Roman 
times.  There  is,  however,  this  difference  be- 
tween the  name  and  the  place,  that  whereas 


Autun.  147 

the  name  is  only  shortened  and  does  not 
contain  a  single  letter  that  was  not  in  the 
Roman  name,  the  place  is  not  only  brought 
within  a  small  area,  but  altered  in  its  nature 
by  the  successive  ages  which  have  passed 
over  it.  The  Middle  Ages,  the  Renaissance, 
and  modern  times  have  all  devastated  what 
went  before,  as  a  schoolboy  sponges  his  slate, 
except  that  the  schoolboy  sometimes  sponges 
his  slate  entirely,  whereas  it  does  fortunately 
so  happen  that  successive  ages  rarely  sponge 
out  the  work  of  their  predecessors  in  a  quite 
perfect  and  absolute  manner. 

As  seen  from  the  height  of  Montjeu, 
Autun,  like  many  cathedral  towns,  appears 
so  dominated  by  its  cathedral  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  how  it  must  have  looked  in 
the  Roman  times  when  no  such  edifice  ex- 
isted. It  seldom  happens  that  a  church  is  so 
happily  placed  as  that  of  Autun,  nearly  on 
the  exact  summit  of  the  hill  on  which  the 
city  is  built,  and  finishing  it  with  a  noble 
ornament.  Spires  are  not  always  the  most 
successful  of  architectural  constructions  ;  and 
there  are  many  situations  in  which  a  massive 
tower,  square  up  to  its  sky-line,  has  a  bet- 
ter expression  of  dignity  and  strength,  and 


148  Autun. 

holds  its  own  better,  —  at  least  it  seems  so  to 
me.  But  the  spire  of  Autun,  besides  feeing 
extremely  elegant  in  itself,  is  precisely  the 
architectural  feature  that  was  most  required 
in  that  situation,  and  is  a  conspicuous  in- 
stance of  the  positive  improvement  of  natural 
scenery  by  human  toil  and  taste.  I  shall 
have  more  to  say  of  it,  and  of  the  cathedral 
generally,  before  I  have  done  with  Autun  ; 
but  it  was  necessary  to  mention  it  in  this 
place,  as  the  object  which  first  strikes  the  eye 
of  a  stranger  from  whatever  quarter  he  first 
catches  sight  of  the  city.  Next  to  the  cathe- 
dral, the  most  striking  object  is  the  lofty 
octagonal  tower  of  the  Ursuline  convent, 
which  was  erected  on  a  Roman  tower,  the 
Roman  work  still  being  perfectly  visible  up 
to  the  first  string-course.  This  tower  has 
in  recent  times  been  rather  increased  in  ap- 
parent height,  by  the  construction  of  a  small 
dome  upon  its  summit,  which  serves  as  a 
pedestal  for  a  statue  of  the  Virgin. 

A  city  at  a  distance  shows  itself  principally 
as  a  collection  of  towers  with  a  confused  med- 
ley of  roofs  and  chimneys  between  them  ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  the  Gothic  cities  of  mediae- 
val France  were  more  effective  at  a  distance 


Autun.  149 

than  any  towns  of  Roman  or  Greek  antiquity, 
simply  because  towers  of  various  kinds  were 
of  such  great  importance  in  Gothic  architec- 
ture and  generally  so  well  designed.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  Autun  had  many  of  them  ;  and 
a  few  remain  to  the  present  day,  in  spite  of 
the  excessively  destructive  tendency  of  modern 
French  municipalities,  bodies  which  really 
seem  to  find  a  keen  satisfaction  in  clearing 
away  the  vestiges  of  past  ages.  A  few  towers 
still  remain  in  the  southern  mediaeval  wall  of 
Autun  ;  and  the  massive  square  one  which 
bears  the  name  of  St.  Leger  forms  part  of  the 
Bishop's  palace,  where  it  is  probably  safe  for 
some  time  to  come.  The  towers  visible  from 
a  distance  are  all  mediaeval ;  the  Roman  ones 
are  still  numerous,  but  hidden  by  the  trees  of 
a  long  avenue,  which  have  prospered  so  as  to 
completely  overshadow  the  Roman  fortifica- 
tions on  the  west  side  of  the  city.  The 
Roman  towers  are  now  mere  semicircular 
projections  from  the  wall,  and  I  do  not  know 
to  what  height  they  may  have  risen  above 
the  walls  when  both  were  originally  con- 
structed. The  Roman  city  was  of  far  greater 
extent  than  the  mediaeval  one  afterwards  built 
within  the  limits  of  it,  like  a  garden  made  in 


150  Autun. 

one  corner  of  a  field  ;  but  although  Augusto- 
dunum  was  of  importance  as  to  size,  and 
although  it  included  public  buildings  of  con- 
siderable splendor  and  extent,  it  is  probable 
that  it  never  presented  so  picturesque  an 
appearance  as  the  Autun  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  now  positively  ascer- 
tained (as  the  result  of  notes  taken  during 
many  years  by  observant  antiquaries  when- 
ever the  soil  has  been  disturbed  for  building 
purposes)  that  the  Roman  city  was  built  on 
the  modern  American  plan  of  straight  streets 
intersecting  each  other  at  right  angles,  the 
only  difference  being  that  in  America  the 
houses  are  probably  higher  and  the  streets 
wider.  A  map  of  Roman  Autun  looks  some- 
thing like  a  chess-board  with  irregular  sides. 
In  the  mediaeval  city,  on  the  contrary,  the 
streets  went  in  every  direction ;  and  the  few 
old  pieces  of  them  that  remain  give  some 
faint  idea  of  the  incessant  variety  which  must 
have  greeted  at  every  turn  the  contemporaries 
of  the  Crusaders. 

Augustodunum  had  its  gates,  temples,  and 
places  of  public  amusement,  of  which  not 
much  remains  to  the  present  day.  There 
are  two  gates ;  one  near  the  river,  now  called 


Autun.  151 

the  Porte  d'Arroux,  the  other,  on  the  north- 
east side  of  the  city,  called  the  Porte  St. 
Andre,  because  one  of  the  towers  which 
flanked  it,  after  being  used  as  a  temple  by 
the  Romans,  was  turned  into  a  Christian 
chapel  and  dedicated  to  St.  Andrew.  How 
many  other  gates  there  may  have  been  in 
the  Roman  times  we  do  not  exactly  know. 
There  were  perhaps  eight,  possibly  five  or 
six ;  but  this  is  a  question  simply  of  anti- 
quarian interest  at  the  present  day,  as  all 
trace  of  the  others  has  disappeared.  The 
greatest  loss  is  probably  the  Porte  des  Mar- 
6res,  which  appears  to  have  been  an  archi- 
tectural work  of  importance  adorned  with 
sculpture  in  marble.  Much  carved  work  has 
been  found  where  this  gate  existed,  and  used 
as  ordinary  building  material.  The  Porte  des 
Marbres  looked  to  the  east,  and  is  believed  to 
have  been  the  principal  entrance  to  the  city. 

There  was  a  great  amphitheatre,  of  which 
only  the  site  is  visible  at  the  present  day.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
ruins  were  still  imposing,  and  sufficient  to 
suggest  an  easy  imaginative  reconstruction 
of  the  whole.  A  century  later  there  were 
still  ranges  of  stone  seats  and  arcades,  though 


152  Autun. 

in  fragments ;  and  now,  in  our  own  century, 
there  is  literally  not  one  stone  left  upon 
another.  It  was  one  of  the  finest  of  the  pro- 
vincial amphitheatres,  considerably  excelling 
Mimes.  It  had  three  tiers  of  arches,  and  I 
see  in  an  engraving  made  in  the  beginning 
of  this  century  that  caryatides  were  intro- 
duced between  the  arches  of  the  uppermost 
story ;  but  whether  this  was  in  consequence 
of  a  tradition  that  had  come  down  to  the 
draughtsman  from  the  seventeenth  century, 
or  a  mere  fanciful  invention  of  his  own,  may 
still  be  doubtful. 

Very  near  to  the  amphitheatre  was  a  theatre 
constructed  on  the  usual  Roman  plan,  but  on 
a  much  larger  scale  than  was  common  in 
Gaul.  In  consequence  of  measurements  and 
calculations  made  by  M.  Chenavard,  an  archi- 
tect of  Lyons,  it  appears  that  the  Autun 
theatre  must  have  afforded  room  for  nearly 
thirty-four  thousand  spectators,  while  those 
of  Orange  and  Aries  could  only  seat  about 
half  that  number.  This  gives  some  idea  of 
the  population  of  Augustodunum.  The  pres- 
ent municipality  is  erecting  a  new  theatre, 
not  on  the  same  site ;  but  the  comedies  of 
Alexandre  Dumas  and  Emile  Ausrier  will  not 

O 


Autun.  153 

be  performed  before  such  imposing  audi- 
ences as  those  which  listened  to  the  plays  of 
Plautus  and  Terence  in  the  classic  times  of 
the  city.  There  is,  however,  the  consolation 
that  the  horrors  of  the  amphitheatre  are  not 
likely  to  be  repeated,  unless  some  future 
century  should  go  back  to  the  barbarous 
pastimes  of  the  Romans. 

Near  to  the  theatre  and  the  amphitheatre, 
but  independently  of  both,  the  Romans  had  a 
fine  artificial  lake  at  Augustodunum  for  naval 
combats.  Nature  so  favored  the  establish- 
ment of  this  lake  by  an  abundantly  flowing 
rivulet  from  the  hills,  and  also  by  the  natural 
hollowing  of  the  ground  near  the  theatre,  that 
the  Romans  easily  made  a  reservoir  of  great 
importance,  and  it  has  been  calculated  that 
the  sports  upon  it  could  be  witnessed  by  a 
hundred  thousand  spectators. 

Antiquarian  writers  give  very  fine  accounts 
of  the  temples  at  Augustodunum,  but  artists 
who  only  care  for  what  they  see,  will  not  find 
much  to  interest  them  in  the  way  of  temples. 
The  structure  which  is  called  the  "  Temple  of 
Janus "  is  like  a  very  massive  square  tower, 
perfectly  plain,  with  holes  in  it  for  windows. 
It  does  not  in  the  least  resemble  our  ordinary 


154  Autitn. 

conception  of  a  Roman  temple  as  a  structure 
of  some  elegance,  adorned  with  columns  and 
a  pediment ;  and  although  the  presence  of 
any  relic  of  antiquity,  however  ugly,  has 
always  some  influence  upon  the  mind,  there 
are  few  ruins  in  the  world  so  large  as  the 
Temple  of  Janus  which  have  so  little  artistic 
interest.  It  has  been  classed  amongst  historic 
monuments,  as  it  deserves  to  be,  but  it  is 
merely  a  piece  of  substantial  building,  not  of 
architecture  in  any  high  sense.  The  little 
circular  temples  of  Pluto  and  Proserpine, 
which  still  existed  by  the  river-side  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago,  and  of  which  some 
fragments  remained  much  later,  had  probably 
greater  pretensions  to  beauty.  The  only  other 
temple  of  which  there  is  any  remaining  frag- 
ment is  that  of  Apollo,  which  now  consists 
simply  of  a  lofty  piece  of  wall  with  a  niche  in 
it,  surrounded  by  modern  houses  and  com- 
pletely hidden  by  them.  Neither  is  it  by  any 
means  absolutely  certain  that  the  temples  bore 
in  Roman  times  the  names  of  the  divinities 
which  have  since  been  attached  to  them. 
The  one  attributed  to  Pluto  was  called  so  on 
the  strength  of  its  resemblance  to  the  Temple 
of  Pluto  at  Rome  ;  that  of  Apollo,  because  it  is 


Autun.  155 

not  very  far  from  the  middle  of  the  Roman 
town,  and  Eumenes,  in  one  of  his  orations, 
placed  the  Temple  of  Apollo  in  a  central 
position.  A  marble  head  with  abundant  hair, 
and  half  a  colossal  hand,  had  been  found  near 
the  temple  which  is  attributed  to  Apollo  before 
Edme  Thomas  wrote  in  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  As  for  the  little  round 
temple  close  by  the  Arroux  which  was  attrib- 
uted to  Proserpine,  it  has  also  been  supposed 
to  belong  to  the  god  of  the  river  Arroux,  and 
Edme  Thomas  held  a  decided  opinion  that 
it  must  have  been  dedicated  to  Augustus. 
These  are  merely  conjectural  opinions  of 
antiquaries  on  subjects  of  which  nothing  is 
positively  known  ;  but  as  it  is  impossible  either 
to  talk  or  write  about  any  edifice  without  hav- 
ing a  name  for  it,  and  as  it  is  tiresome  to  have 
to  say  each  time  we  use  it  that  the  name  is 
merely  conjectural,  these  titles  have  obtained 
currency. 

It  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  interest- 
ing to  visit  such  a  place  as  Augustodunum, 
which  must  have  been  a  very  perfect  specimen 
of  a  Gallo-Roman  city,  with  the  special  advan- 
tage of  a  very  exceptionally  fine  situation ; 
but  the  mediaeval  city  must  have  been  incom- 


156  Autun. 

parably  more  to  our  taste,  and  perhaps  even 
the  town,  as  it  exists  at  present,  may  have 
certain  advantages  over  its  predecessors,  in 
spite  of  the  constant  destruction  which  has 
been  going  on  for  the  last  three  hundred  years. 
It  has  more  variety,  which  is  something,  and  it 
bears  the  traces  of  a  longer  past.  We  ought 
to  remember,  what  we  very  easily  forget,  that 
when  mediaeval  architecture  was  new  it  had 
nothing  whatever  of  that  romantic  power  over 
the  mind  which  it  now  derives  from  its  an- 
tiquity and  from  the  contrast  between  the 
pathos  of  its  ruinous  beauty  and  the  unfeeling 
prose  of  a  century  so  prosaic  and  so  mechani- 
cal as  ours.  For  us  the  walls  and  towers  of  a 
mediaeval  town  are  connected  with  the  descrip- 
tions of  our  modern  poets  and  novelists,  who 
have  thrown  over  them  all  the  enchantments 
of  genius,  and  they  are  contrasted  by  us  with 
the  ugly  and  dirty  buildings  we  see  in  our 
"  hives  of  industry,"  which  the  mediaeval  mind 
could  no  more  imagine  than  it  could  foresee 
the  electric  telegraph.  But  I  shall  have  more 
to  say  on  this  subject  when  we  study  what 
remains  at  Autun  more  in  detail. 


Autun.  157 

II. 

THE   CATHEDRAL. 

HPHE  classical  conception  of  an  architec- 
tural structure  was  that  it  should  be 
complete  in  itself  and  perfectly  harmonious, 
so  that  nothing  could  be  added  to  it  without 
visible  excess,  and  nothing  taken  away  from  it 
without  evident  loss.  The  classical  building 
was  an  organic  whole,  approaching  in  its  com- 
pleteness to  the  completeness  of  animal  forms, 
and  the  idea  that  such  an  organic  whole  could 
be  improved  by  the  addition  of  a  foreign 
adjunct  was  an  idea  which  could  not  occur 
to  the  classical  mind.  The  well  known 
and  often  quoted  opening  lines  of  the 
"  Ars  Poetica  "  of  Horace  express  the  classical 
horror  of  the  incongruous.  He  was  writing 
about  poetry  and  painting ;  had  he  written 
of  architecture  it  would  have  been  in  the 
same  strain,  but  nobody  in  the  Augustan  age 
could  possibly  have  foreseen  the  wild  experi- 
ments in  architecture  which  have  been  made 
in  mediaeval  and  modern  times. 

The  love  of  unity  and  perfection  did  not 
die  out   at   once.      The  simple  Romanesque 


158  Autun. 

churches  were  as  consistent  as  Greek  temples, 
and,  in  the  best  examples,  not  less  complete 
in  plan.  Subsequent  modes  of  building  have 
also  produced  works  admirable  for  their  unity, 
but  the  misfortune  has  been  that  the  desire 
for  unity  in  the  Gothic  ages  was  weaker  than 
the  desire  to  work  in  the  prevailing  fashion 
of  the  day.  Gothic  architects  seem  to  have 
believed  that  current  fashions  were  always  a 
positive  improvement  on  the  art  of  their  pred- 
ecessors. They  appear  to  have  been,  at  the 
same  time,  entirely  unaware  of  the  great 
artistic  truth  that  superior  things  out  of  place 
are  less  desirable  than  inferior  things  which 
are  where  they  ought  to  be.  The  human 
head  on  the  horse's  body  of  Horace  was  not  a 
more  monstrous  violation  of  organic  harmony 
than  those  which  the  Gothic  builders  com- 
mitted whenever  a  Romanesque  edifice  fell 
into  their  ruthless  hands.  The  mixture  of 
delicate  appreciation  of  artistic  beauty,  when 
it  was  of  the  kind  that  happened  to  be  in 
fashion,  with  perfect  indifference  to  that  which 
had  gone  out  of  fashion,  displayed  or  betrayed 
in  the  works  of  mediaeval  architects,  is  one  of 
the  strongest  evidences  we  have  to  prove  the 
wonderful  power  of  fashion  over  the  tastes  and 


Autun.  159 

feelings  of  mankind.  The  mediaeval  architects 
were  as  much  the  slaves  of  fashion  as  Parisian 
fine  ladies  of  the  present  day,  the  only  differ- 
ence in  their  favor  being  that  their  fashion 
changed  more  slowly,  a  slowness  due  to  the 
long  time  required  for  realizing  changes  of  in- 
tention in  architecture  in  comparison  with  the 
rapidity  with  which  they  may  be  carried  out  in 
costume.  But  if  the  mediaeval  architects  were 
less  rapidly  changeful  than  our  modern  dress- 
makers, they  were  artistically  inferior  to  them 
in  the  care  for  unity  and  harmony.  Every 
modiste  in  Paris  takes  the  trouble  to  think,  as 
she  devises  a  costume,  how  the  parts  of  it  will 
go  together.  She  will  not  sew  the  sleeve  of 
a  splendid  dress  to  a  plain  one ;  she  will  not 
encumber  a  dress  conceived  originally  in  one 
style  with  ornaments  derived  from  a  different 
and  a  totally  incongruous  style.  Yet  this  is 
what,  in  a  far  more  serious  art,  where  the 
responsibilities  are  far  greater  and  fanciful 
divergence  much  less  excusable,  the  mediaeval 
architects  did  without  hesitation  and  without 
regret.  They  appear  to  have  acted  blindly, 
to  have  had  artistic  impulses,  but  no  power  of 
criticism,  and  especially  to  have  been  carried 
forward  by  the  impetus  of  a  great  general  move- 


160  Atttun. 

ment  in  one  direction  or  another,  an  impetus 
which  they  do  not  seem  to  have  had  any  dis- 
position to  resist. 

These  remarks  may  seem  strangely  severe 
to  the  reader  who  has  been  accustomed  to  hear 
the  Middle  Ages  spoken  of  with  great  reverence 
as  a  time  when  builders  were  not  only  much 
more  intelligent  as  artists,  but  much  more 
conscientious  and  conservative  than  they  are 
to-day.  As  for  the  intelligence  of  the  mediae- 
val architects  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
was  surprisingly  high,  considering  the  world 
they  lived  in ;  but  it  was  an  intelligence 
strictly  confined  to  their  own  style,  like  the 
practical  intelligence  of  the  uneducated  in  our 
own  day,  who  do  their  own  work  well  but 
appreciate  nothing  beyond  it.  With  regard 
to  their  conservatism  it  was  exactly  that  of  a 
French  revolutionist  who  knocks  down  an  old 
political  system  in  order  to  erect  a  new  one  in 
its  place.  It  was  not  simply  destructive,  nor 
purely  constructive  either,  but  a  combination 
of  both,  beginning  with  demolishing  other 
men's  performances  in  order  to  make  room  for 
one's  own,  as  the  monks  scraped  parchment 
manuscripts  to  cover  them  with  their  own 
elucubrations. 


Autun.  161 

The  history  of  Autun  Cathedral,  from  the 
beginning  down  to  the  present  year,  is  a  good 
example  of  the  fact  that  the  architects  of  our 
own  time,  notwithstanding  the  hard  things 
that  have  been  so  often  said  about  their  pre- 
sumption, are  in  reality  the  first  who  have 
paid  any  respect  whatever  to  the  conceptions 
and  intentions  of  their  predecessors.  The 
Church  of  St.  Lazarus,  or  Chapel  as  it  was 
once  called,  was  originally  planned  in  the 
eleventh  century,  the  idea  being  attributed  to 
Robert  I.,  Duke  of  Burgundy.  It  was  so  far 
finished  in  1132  as  to  be  consecrated  by  Pope 
Innocent  II.  in  person,  and  in  1146  the  re- 
mains of  St.  Lazarus  were  transferred  to  it. 
Who  this  St.  Lazarus  really  was  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  say.  It  appears  to  be  certain  that  he 
was  a  bishop  of  Marseilles,  and  the  priests 
encourage  the  belief  (without  absolutely  affirm- 
ing it  to  be  well  founded)  that  this  bishop  of 
Marseilles  and  Lazarus  of  Bethany  were  the 
same  person.1  To  any  one  who  believes  in 

1  The  tone  adopted  by  the  Church  on  this  subject  may  be 
judged  of  by  the  following  quotation  from  an  ecclesiastical 
history :  "  C'est  a  cet  ensemble  de  circonstances  que  Ton 
attribue  1'arrive'e  en  Bourgogne  du  corps  ve'ne're'  de  1'^veque 
de  Marseille,  Saint  Lazare,  regard^  par  la  plus  imposante  des 


1 62  Autun. 

this  identity  the  remains  of  the  bishop  must 
be  of  great  interest,  and  they  are  carried 
through  the  city  annually  in  September  in 
stately  episcopal  procession,  to  be  venerated 
by  the  faithful. 

I  mention  these  relics  of  Lazarus  in  this 
place  because  the  church  which  is  now  the 
Cathedral  of  Autun  was  built  specially  to 
receive  them,  most  likely  in  the  full  belief  that 
they  had  belonged  to  Lazarus  the  resusci- 
tated, as  it  is  not  likely  that  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy  would  have  rendered  such  extraor- 
dinary honors  to  any  mere  bishop  of  Mar- 
seilles. A  tomb  of  great  magnificence  was 
erected  to  receive  the  bones  on  the  spot  now 
occupied  by  the  high  altar.  This  tomb  was 
an  edifice  of  white,  red,  and  black  marble, 
more  than  twenty  feet  high,  and  elaborately 
carved  by  a  monk  of  artistic  genius  named 
Martin.  The  tomb  of  Lazarus  was  the  glory 
of  the  church,  and  its  raison  d'etre  as  the 
church  was  built  to  contain  and  protect  it ; 
but,  unfortunately,  it  was  intrusted  to  the 
keeping  of  the  clergy  in  days  when  there  was 

traditions  comme  le  meme  Lazare  dont  il  est  parld  dans 
1'dvangile  et  que  Jdsus-Christ  ressuscita  quel  ques  jours  avant 
sa  Passion." 


Autun.  163 

no  State  authority  to  protect  ecclesiastical 
buildings  against  them.  Of  all  human  beings, 
an  ignorant  clergy  are  the  most  dangerous 
guardians  of  churches.  As  a  French  archi- 
tect observed  to  me,  "  It  is  like  asking  wolves 
to  guard  sheep."  The  consequence  of  their 
guardianship  in  this  case  has  been  that  the 
tomb  of  Lazarus  has  vanished,  some  of  the 
marble  in  it  being  employed  for  purposes 
which  will  be  explained  later. 

As  the  church  of  St.  Lazarus  at  first  ex- 
isted it  was  a  complete  conception,  having 
the  merit  of  perfect  artistic  unity.  We  shall 
soon  see  how  ruthlessly  this  unity  was  after- 
wards destroyed,  in  deference  to  newer  fash- 
ions of  building.  If  I  were  to  describe  the 
first  architecture  as  simply  Romanesque, 
the  word  would  convey  but  a  partially  true 
impression.  What  is  usually  understood  by 
Romanesque  architecture  is  a  style  retaining 
the  round  arch  from  ancient  Roman  work,  but 
with  very  little  else  of  a  classical  character. 
There  are,  however,  examples  in  which  the 
classic  influence  is  much  more  generally  vis- 
ible ;  and  of  these  Autun  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable.  It  is  generally  believed — and 
is,  indeed,  so  probable  as  to  be  allowably 


164  Autun. 

assumed  for  a  certainty  —  that  the  reason 
for  this  must  have  been  the  remains  of  an- 
tiquity at  Autun  itself;  which,  in  the  eleventh 
century,  were  far  more  abundant  and  far 
more  perfect  than  at  the  present  day.  When 
the  church  of  St.  Lazarus  was  built,  the  am- 
phitheatre was  in  existence  and  probably  in 
fine  preservation.  The  architectural  remains 
of  the  theatre  may  still  have  been  imposing, 
the  Roman  gates  still  comparatively  numer- 
ous, the  temples  not  yet  demolished.  Sur- 
rounded by  these  examples  of  classical  Roman 
architecture — some  of  which  were  certainly 
very  conspicuous  by  their  size,  and  others 
attractive  by  their  elegance  —  the  church- 
builders  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries 
would  naturally  be  subjected  to  the  kind  of  in- 
fluence which  art-work  already  accomplished 
has  over  fresh  production,  especially  when 
the  fresh  production  is  a  new  beginning.  In 
this  sense  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
Autun  Cathedral  is  the  fruit  of  an  eleventh- 
century  Renaissance;  a  Renaissance  preced- 
ing Gothic,  as  a  subsequent  classical  move- 
ment followed  Gothic  and  replaced  it.  If 
we  examine  one  of  the  bays  of  Autun  Ca- 
thedral, we  find  that  the  massive  piers  are 


Autun.  165 

decorated  with  fluted  pilasters ;  and  so  are  the 
little  piers  or  wall-spaces  between  the  small 
arches  in  the  upper  story  of  the  Roman 
Porte  (fArroux.  The  arcade  of  the  triform m 
consists  of  round  arches  on  thin  fluted  clas- 
sical pilasters.  The  cornices  and  mouldings 
are  classic  in  taste;  and  the  widest  divergence 
from  classical  precedent  is  in  the  great  arches, 
which  are  pointed,  showing  the  beginning  of 
the  Gothic  tendency.  A  fluted  pilaster  is 
carried  above  the  triforium  on  each  side  to 
the  springing  of  the  roof;  where  it  supports 
a  simple  flat  rib  or  projection  forming  a  dis- 
tinct round  arch  over  the  nave,  the  space 
between  these  arches  being  simply  vaulted. 
The  windows  of  the  clear-story  are  plain, 
round-arched,  Romanesque  windows,  in  har- 
mony with  the  arcade  of  the  triforium  (except 
for  the  absence  of  classical  decoration).  In 
the  space  left  between  the  heads  of  the 
pointed  arches  and  the  string-course  on  which 
stand  the  pilasters  of  the  triforium,  there  is  a 
band  of  sculptured  decoration,  composed  en- 
tirely of  large  roses  and  running  quite  round 
the  edifice,  being  interrupted  only  by  the 
large  pilasters. 

The   original    Romanesque  church  had    a 


1 66  Autun. 

triple  apse,  consisting  of  a  large  semicircle 
for  the  nave,  and  two  smaller  semicircles  for 
the  aisles.  The  apse  has  been  altered  or 
hidden  since  it  was  built,  as  I  will  explain 
later ;  for  the  present  I  am  trying  to  describe 
the  church  in  its  first  perfect  state.  Viollet 
le  Due  believed  that  the  round  central  apse 
went  up  to  the  full  height  of  the  nave,  and 
he  drew  it  so  in  a  design  which  was  engraved 
and  published  in  the  Revue  Generate  de 
f  Architecture  for  1853;  but  this  was  a  mis- 
take which  he  afterwards  acknowledged  with 
the  readiness  of  a  true  student,  which  he 
always  was.  The  cause  of  his  error  was  the 
band  of  roses  which  goes  round  the  apse,  and 
therefore  seems  to  imply  that  the  primitive 
architecture  was  continued  at  that  height 
with  the  triforium  above  it,  and  windows 
above  the  triforium,  as  Viollet  le  Due  repre- 
sented it  in  his  drawing  of  a  restored  interior; 
but,  in  fact,  the  roses  in  the  apse  are  of  plas- 
ter, and  much  more  recent  than  the  stone 
originals  elsewhere.  There  is  evidence  that 
the  original  apse  was  not  very  high,  that  it 
was  lighted  by  two  rows  of  small  Romanesque 
windows,  and  separated  from  the  choir  by 
a  large  arch  springing  from  capitols  still 


Atitun.  167 

existing.  The  apse,  in  fact,  must  have  been 
one  of  those  Romanesque  apses  common  in 
churches  of  that  period,  which  do  not  aim  at 
an  appearance  of  imposing  height,  but  rather, 
if  I  may  so  express  it,  at  an  appearance  of 
intimacy  and  snugness,  as  if  the  altar  ought 
to  have  a  home  of  its  own,  distinct  from  the 
body  of  the  church,  and  comfortably  pro- 
portioned, as  to  height,  to  the  limited  area 
enclosed  by  the  semicircular  wall.  There  are 
charming  examples  of  this  at  Semur-en-Brion- 
nais  and  in  the  church  of  St.  Genou  in  the 
department  of  the  Indre. 

The  whole  of  the  church  of  St.  Lazarus  was 
originally  finished  in  the  kind  of  Romanesque 
which  I  have  just  described.  To  complete 
the  description  I  have  only  to  add  that  there 
were  no  side-chapels  beyond  the  aisles,  and 
that  the  aisles  were  lighted  by  windows  with 
round  arched  heads  (and,  of  course,  no  mull- 
ions  or  tracery)  of  the  same  kind  as  those 
in  the  clear-story,  but  larger.  There  was  a 
fine  arched  doorway  at  the  end  opposite  the 
altar,  which  from  the  position  in  which  the 
church  is  built  happens  to  be  the  north,  and 
not  the  west  end ;  and  another  of  similar 
character,  but  less  magnificent,  in  the  east 


1 68  Autun. 

transept.  There  was  a  tower  above  the  in- 
tersection of  the  transepts  and  nave,  but  of 
this  tower  no  drawing  has  come  down  to  the 
present  day.  All  that  is  known  about  it  is 
that  the  tower  must  have  been  of  great  weight, 
for  a  reason  which  the  reader  will  meet  with 
shortly.  It  was,  probably,  a  heavy  stone 
structure  of  two  or  more  stories,  the  weight 
of  the  wall  not  much  lightened  by  the  aper- 
tures :  and  there  are  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  pointed  pyramidal  roof  must  have 
been  covered  thickly  with  lead.  In  the 
twelfth  century  (so  I  am  told  by  a  learned 
French  architect)  the  art  of  laminating  lead 
was  unknown  in  France,  and  it  had  to  be 
beaten  out  with  hammers,  so  that  it  was 
always  thick  in  comparison  with  the  sheet- 
lead  of  modern  times. 

The  present  cathedral  is  celebrated  for  its 
vast  and  magnificent  porch,  which,  being  of 
Romanesque  architecture  and  a  striking  thing 
in  itself,  is  naturally  (and  I  believe  invariably) 
supposed  by  visitors  to  have  formed  part  of 
the  original  structure.  The  truth  is,  however, 
that  the  first  building  had  no  porch  whatever, 
and  that  the  noble  flight  of  stairs  in  the 
present  porch,  which  produces  so  grand  an 


Autun.  169 

effect  that  the  first  builders  of  the  cathedral 
got  the  credit  for  it,  is  in  fact  altogether 
modern.  It  is  not  even  a  restoration.  There 
never  were  any  such  steps  there  at  all  until 
the  nineteenth  century ;  in  the  old  time  there 
was  nothing  but  a  slope  of  irregular  ground 
with  access  to  the  doorway  through  a  hole 
in  the  eastern  wall  of  the  porch,  altogether  a 
much  less  imposing  arrangement.  Externally, 
the  Romanesque  church  must  have  appeared 
simple,  but  harmonious.  The  walls  of  the 
aisles  were  quite  plain  and  relieved  only  by 
the  slightly  projecting  buttresses  of  the  style, 
answering  in  situation  to  the  piers  of  the 
interior.  The  windows  were  so  plain  as  to 
have  scarcely  any  decorative  effect  except  the 
slight  one  derived  from  the  recurrence  of  their 
uniform  arches.  The  most  decorative  things 
in  the  whole  building  were  the  arcades  be- 
tween the  windows  and  roof  of  the  nave,  and 
those  on  the  front  of  the  transepts.  There 
was  also  considerable  richness  in  the  door- 
ways, to  which  the  plain  walls  gave  additional 
interest.  In  the  great  arch  over  the  northern 
door  was  a  most  elaborate  tympanum  repre- 
senting the  Last  Judgment,  and  in  the  arch 
over  the  east  door  was  another  tympanum,  of 


170  Autun. 

less  importance,  representing  Adam  and  Eve 
in  the  Garden,  when  they  hid  themselves 
after  eating  the  forbidden  fruit  and  God  found 
them. 

If  the  church  of  St.  Lazarus  had  come 
down  to  us  in  its  first  state,  it  would  not  have 
had  the  variety  and  historic  interest  that  it 
possesses  to-day,  but  it  would  have  been  a 
very  complete  and  congruous  work  of  art. 
Certain  changes  occurred,  however,  which 
made  it  impossible  to  keep  the  building  as 
it  was  at  first.  The  soil  was  treacherous. 
The  north  wall  with  the  great  doorway  in  it 
showed  unmistakable  signs  of  falling  out- 
wards ;  the  great  vault  of  the  nave  began  to 
push  out  the  walls  of  the  clear-story.  The 
exact  measures  of  these  displacements  are 
for  the  north  wall  between  i  ft.  and  i  ft.  4  in., 
and  for  the  outward  pushing  of  the  vault  of 
the  nave,  about  the  same  on  each  side,  making 
a  total  widening  of  about  twenty-eight  inches. 
Ruin  was  avoided  by  two  plans,  which  in 
reality  amounted  to  the  same  expedient.  The 
north  front  was  prevented  from  falling  out- 
wards by  the  addition  of  a  gigantic  porch,  for 
which  the  architect  had  the  excellent  excuse 
that  in  those  days  there  were  great  numbers 


Autnn.  171 

of  leprous  pilgrims  who  came  crowding  about 
the  door  and  needed  some  shelter  from  the 
inclemencies  of  the  weather.  I  do  not  know 
if  these  poor  lepers  were  admitted  into  the 
body  of  the  church,  but  through  the  open 
doors  they  would  see,  in  the  distance,  the 
great  marble  tomb  of  St.  Lazarus,  —  the 
Lazarus  of  Bethany,  as  they  believed,  who 
had  lost  health  and  life,  and  recovered  both 
by  a  miracle  like  that  they  vainly  hoped  for. 
Thus  the  weakness  of  the  building,  or  rather 
the  insecurity  of  its  foundations,  led  to  an 
addition  which,  so  far  from  having  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  excrescence,  looks  like  a  first 
thought  of  artistic  genius.  The  supporting 
of  the  side  walls,  to  prevent  them  from  falling 
outwards,  cannot  be  considered  so  fortunate. 
Here  the  architect  had  recourse  to  the  more 
commonplace  device  of  flying  buttresses, — 
not,  however,  so  commonplace  in  those  days 
as  it  has  since  become,  for  these  are  amongst 
the  earliest  "examples.  The  architect  at  Au- 
tun  who  strengthened  the  cathedral  in  this 
way  at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  accom- 
plished his  purpose  effectually  by  strong  walls 
set  at  right  angles  to  those  of  the  aisles  and 
projecting  far,  these  walls  being  weighted 


172  Autun. 

above  by  massive  pinnacles,  from  the  bases 
of  which  sprang  the  arches  that  supported  the 
walls  of  the  clear-story. 

Another  evil  effect  of  the  state  of  the 
foundations,  or  of  the  soil  in  which  they  were 
laid,  was  that  the  weight  of  the  great  tower 
pushed  down  the  four  piers  on  which  it  was 
erected,  so  as  to  disjoin  them  from  the  inner 
walls  in  the  four  angles,  causing  a  break  of 
six  inches.  Notwithstanding  this,  it  might 
have  been  left  with  that  degree  of  disruption 
for  centuries  if  a  great  fire  had  not  occurred 
by  which  the  tower  was  destroyed.  Material 
evidence  of  this  fire  has  been  found  during 
recent  restorations.  It  is  supposed  that  the 
woodwork  of  the  roof  must  have  been  set 
on  fire  by  lightning.  The  lead  ran  down 
upon  the  adjoining  roofs  of  transepts  and 
nave,  which  were  also  fired.  I  do  not  know 
the  exact  date  of  this  event,  and  the  date  is 
not  of  any  consequence  as  concerning  the 
architecture  of  the  building.  What  concerns 
us  is  the  date  of  the  new  tower  and  the  new 
roofs,  which  we  know.  Cardinal  Rolin,  in 
1480,  built  the  new  tower  and  many  other 
things,  of  which  more  will  be  said  presently. 
Like  all  builders  of  the  Gothic  times,  he  and 


Autun.  173 

his  architects  paid  no  respect  whatever  to  the 
character  of  the  building  they  had  to  deal 
with.  It  seemed  to  them  perfectly  natural 
and  right  to  erect  a  Gothic  tower  with  a  tall 
spire  on  a  Romanesque  cathedral.  Their 
tower  was  beautiful  in  itself,  and  their  spire 
of  extraordinary  lightness  and  elegance.  The 
state  of  the  foundations  suggested  the  neces- 
sity of  avoiding  useless  weight,  so  the  spire, 
which  in  itself  was  to  be  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  feet  high  from  the  top  of  the  tower,  had 
to  depend  for  its  strength  on  excellence  of 
construction  rather  than  on  quantity  of  mate- 
rial. It  is  entirely  of  stone,  and  without  any 
internal  support  whatever.  Seen  from  the 
inside  it  presents  the  appearance  of  a  room 
of  which  the  walls  converge  as  you  look  up, 
and  I  was  never  in  any  building  that  con- 
veyed the  impression  of  prodigious  height  so 
powerfully.  From  base  to  apex  there  is  noth- 
ing but  the  smooth  stone  walls,  and,  although 
the  actual  height  is  not  much  more  than  the 
nave  of  Amiens  cathedral,  the  narrowness  of 
the  area  and  the  convergence  of  the  sides 
make  it  seem  incomparably  more  lofty.  The 
effect  on  the  mind  is  increased  when  we  are 
told  that  the  walls  are  seven  inches  thick  at 


174  Ant  Tin. 

the  base  and  six  towards  the  summit.  "  If 
people  could  see  the  stone  used  in  the  spire 
of  Autun,"  said  an  architect,  "  in  a  solid  mass, 
they  would  be  surprised  by  the  small  quantity 
of  it." 

The  Cardinal's  way  of  dealing  with  the 
apse  was  as  follows  :  His  Gothic  taste  prob- 
ably disliked  a  Romanesque  apse,  as  not 
imposing  enough  and  not  sufficiently  well 
lighted,  especially  if  the  six  small  round- 
headed  windows  were  filled  with  colored 
glass,  so  he  did  not  pull  the  apse  to  pieces, 
nor  even  remove  the  stonework  of  the  win- 
dows ;  he  simply  built  them  up,  as  people 
used  to  do  in  old  houses  when  the  window 
duty  was  first  established.  He  removed  the 
stone  roof  of  the  apse,  which  had  been  built 
in  the  Romanesque  fashion,  en  queue  de  four, 
took  down  the  great  arch  called  the  "  arche 
triomphale"  and  left  the  walls  of  the  apse 
standing  as  they  were,  and  even  the  capitals 
from  which  the  arch  had  sprung.  He  then 
carried  up  the  wall  to  the  full  height  of  the 
nave,  piercing  it  with  five  great  lancet  lights 
and  two  smaller  ones,  their  sills  being  on 
the  top  of  the  old  apse  wall.  As  the  old 
apse  had  only  been  supported  by  the  slightly 


Autun.  175 

projecting  buttresses  usual  in  Romanesque 
architecture,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  for- 
tify them  by  strong  ones,  to  support  the  wall, 
above  which  (on  the  Gothic  principle)  was  a 
weak  structure  cut  by  seven  slits  in  the  shape 
of  windows. 

From  that  date  the  Gothic  devastation  went 
on  very  vigorously  in  the  aisles.  The  im- 
provers pulled  down  the  old  walls  with  the 
simple  windows,  decorated  the  openings  with 
fringes  of  senseless  cusps,  and  erected  a  series 
of  chapels  in  the  flamboyant  style,  to  oc- 
cupy the  spaces  between  the  great  buttresses. 
Most  of  these  chapels  are  heavy  and  inele- 
gant, which  cannot  be  said  of  the  Gothic 
apse.  A  very  strange  piece  of  Gothic  con- 
struction is  that  which  supports  the  organ 
loft.  It  consists  of  half  arches  with  abundant 
cusps,  some  of  which  come  in  awkwardly  and 
contradictorily,  yet  this  work  is  said  to  be 
of  the  same  period  as  the  spire.  The  flam- 
boyant chapels  were  begun  at  that  time 
also,  but  continued  later,  in  the  sixteenth 
century. 

A  vestry  was  erected  as  a  distinct  building 
outside  the  cathedral  to  the  west,  and  it  may 
have  helped  to  strengthen  the  wall  of  the 


176  Autun. 

western  transept.  This  vestry  is  a  not  inele- 
gant specimen  of  flamboyant  Gothic.  The 
general  scheme  of  it  is  simple,  but  the  parts 
are  disposed  with  that  freedom  from  the 
idea  of  regular  and  symmetrical  arrangement 
which  marked  the  Gothic,  as  opposed  to  the 
classical  spirit.  Although  there  is  one  window 
in  each  defined  space  between  string-courses 
above  and  below  and  buttresses  on  each  side, 
the  window  is  not  inserted  in  the  middle  of 
the  space,  but  freely  to  any  side  that  might 
suit  internal  convenience.  The  little  tower 
is  pretty,  but  it  owes  much  of  its  prettiness  to 
its  uppermost  story  and  its  pyramidal  roof, 
which  were  added  quite  recently  by  the  re- 
storers. The  same  restorers  have  done  a  good 
deal  to  the  vestry  in  other  ways,  giving  it  a  new 
roof  and  a  new  pierced  parapet,  the  parapet 
being  an  exact  copy  of  the  original  one,  which 
had  fallen  into  decay.  If  this  vestry  were  an 
independent  building  it  would  probably  have 
some  celebrity  as  an  elegant  specimen  of 
French  Gothic  applicable  to  domestic  archi- 
tecture, for  a  modern  house  might  be  built 
as  a  development  of  the  same  idea,  but  in  its 
present  situation  it  is  overwhelmed  by  the 
mass  of  the  cathedral,  with  which  it  has  very 


Autun. 


177 


little  architectural  relationship,  and  is  also 
hidden  from  public  view  by  being  in  a  small 
enclosure  where  it  can  hardly  be  seen  in  its 
entirety. 

It  was  very  unlikely  that  this  cathedral 
would  get  through  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  without  grievous  injury  by 
destruction  or  addition  of  some  kind.  The 
clergy  in  the  later  Renaissance  had  a  pas- 
sion for  classical  marble  columns  and  panels, 
just  as  in  the  Gothic  times  they  had  a  passion 
for  high  roofs  and  tall  windows.  They  have 
always  indulged  themselves  in  these  passing 
fancies  whenever  they  have  been  able,  with 
the  most  absolute  disregard  to  artistic  unity. 
I  have  said  that  Cardinal  Rolin  walled  up  all 
the  windows  in  the  Romanesque  apse.  It  was 
reserved  for  the  clergy  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury to  line  this  apse  nearly  up  to  the  sills  of 
the  new  Gothic  windows  with  huge  panels  of 
magnificent  red  Sicilian  marble,  divided  by 
columns  of  gray  antique  marble,  with  gilded 
capitals,  and  surrounded  by  frames  and  mould- 
ings of  another  variety.  On  a  cornice  sup- 
ported by  these  columns  stand  a  number  of 
little,  fat,  gilded  angels,  like  Cupids,  which 
hold  garlands,,  and  are  otherwise  elegantly 


178  Autun. 

occupied.  The  marble  for  this  panelling  was, 
I  have  been  told,  partly  got  from  ancient 
Roman  remains  and  partly  from  the  grand 
tomb  of  St.  Lazarus,  which  was  used  as  a 
quarry. 

It  is  curious  that  Voltaire  should  have  had 
some  influence  over  the  cathedral  at  Autun, 
but  it  is  believed  that  he  caused  some  destruc- 
tion there,  and  was  also  the  involuntary  cause 
of  some  preservation.  He  went  to  stay  at  the 
chateau  of  Montjeu,  where  he  attended  the 
marriage  of  the  Due  de  Richelieu.  Dunns: 

o  o 

his  visit  he  condescended  to  look  at  the 
cathedral,  and  so  ridiculed  what  appeared  to 
him  the  barbarism  of  its  architecture,  and 
especially  of  its  sculptural  adornments,  that 
the  canons  had  the  whole  of  the  great  tym- 
panum plastered  over  to  hide  the  composition 
of  the  Last  Judgment.  In  doing  this  they 
preserved  it  from  damage  during  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  it  remained  so  hidden  for  seventy 
years ;  after  which  lapse  of  time  its  existence 
was  totally  forgotten,  and  some  gentlemen  at 
Autun  discovered  it,  suspecting  that  there 
might  be  carvings  under  the  plaster.  As  to 
the  other  tympanum,  that  over  the  door  of  the 
east  transept,  representing  Adam  and  Eve 


A  lit  tin.  179 

hiding  themselves  in  Paradise,  it  was  broken 
to  pieces  and  carted  off,  the  fragments  being 
afterwards  used  in  building  shops  in  the  town. 
One  of  these  fragments,  representing  Eve 
under  a  bush,  was  found  during  an  alteration, 
and  has  been  preserved.  In  the  mouldings 
round  the  great  tympanum  there  is  a  broad 
hollow  originally  filled  with  a  succession  of 
figure-groups,  which  the  clergy  of  Voltaire's 
time  diligently  cleared  away  in  order  to  com- 
plete the  classical  simplification  begun  by  the 
plastering  of  the  tympanum.  They  also  had 
doors  made  in  the  approved  Renaissance  style, 
and  altogether  did  what  little  their  limited 
means  allowed  them  towards  the  taking  away 
of  all  character  from  the  edifice  committed  to 
their  charge. 

We  now  come  to  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  epoch  of  Viollet  le  Due,  the  most  learned 
and  the  least  prejudiced  of  all  architects  who 
ever  lived  in  France  —  at  least  so  I  sincerely 
believe.  Viollet  le  Due,  unlike  all  his  prede- 
cessors, had  so  great  a  respect  for  unity  in  art 
that  he  would  avoid,  whenever  possible,  the 
addition  of  any  feature  to  a  building  which 
was  not  in  harmony  with  the  original  design. 
His  fault,  if  it  was  a  fault,  consisted  in  a  steady 


180  Autun. 

desire  to  get  back  to  the  first  state  of  the 
structure,  before  irreverential  successors  to 
the  original  architect  had  made  additions 
which  he  could  never  have  even  conceived. 
In  dealing  with  such  a  building  as  the  cathe- 
dral of  Autun,  in  which  the  additions  in 
another  style  were  too  important  to  be 
removed,  Viollet  le  Due  must  have  felt  an 
irritating  desire  to  go  further  than  the  general 
opinion  was  prepared  for.  If  the  cathedral  of 
Autun  had  been  his  private  property,  I  doubt 
whether  he  would  have  long  resisted  the  temp- 
tation to  pull  down  the  Gothic  tower  and 
spire  and  replace  them  with  a  tower  of  purely 
Romanesque  design  ;  but  I  do  not  doubt,  I 
am  perfectly  certain,  that  he  would  not  have 
tolerated  the  Gothic  apse.  He  would  have 
restored  the  Romanesque  apse,  which  still 
exists  behind  plaster  and  marble,  in  all  its 
integrity ;  he  would  have  cleared  away  the 
marble  panels,  columns,  gilded  Cupids,  and 
the  rest,  and  horrified  the  ecclesiastical  mind 
by  the  destruction  of  the  tall  windows  above 
them. 

He  and  M.  Durand  were  restrained  from 
this  line  of  action  by  a  respect  for  public 
opinion,  though  I  fancy  that  if  they  had  pulled 


Autun.  181 

down  the  Gothic  apse  suddenly  and  without 
warning,  the  public  would  have  accepted  the 
fait  accompli  &Kt  a  little  tempest  of  complaint 
about  the  marbles.  In  all  other  respects  the 
action  of  the  modern  restorers  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  the  Romanesque  restoration  wher- 
ever possible.  I  have  said  that  the  first  roofs 
were  burned  when  the  lead  trickled  down 
from  the  burning  tower.  Those  roofs  were 
replaced  by  Gothic  architects  with  new  ones 
of  far  higher  pitch.  Of  late  years  it  has  been 
found  necessary,  in  consequence  of  the  decay 
of  the  Gothic  roofs,  to  proceed  to  a  new  re- 
placement, and  this  has  been  done  with  the 
Romanesque  pitch.  The  chancel  retains  its 
Gothic  roof,  the  nave  and  transept  have  the 
new  pitch,  which  is  a  restoration  of  the 
Romanesque  roof.  This  new  pitch  was  ob- 
jected to  as  taking  away  from  the  apparent 
dignity  and  importance  of  the  edifice  ;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  high  roofs  look  more 
imposing  than  moderately  inclined  ones,  but 
there  is  a  great  compensation  in  the  dis- 
engagement of  the  tower.  The  tower  would 

o    o 

look  much  better  if  the  chancel  roof  were 
brought  down  to  the  level  adopted  for  that  of 
the  nave.  The  two  small  Romanesque  towers 


1 82  Autun. 

are  entirely  new.  There  was  no  authority  to 
go  upon,  as  the  original  towers  had  never 
been  completed.  Under  these  circumstances 
M.  Durand  designed  two  towers  with  pyram- 
idal stone  roofs  entirely  in  pure  Romanesque 
taste,  yet  not  free  from  one  or  two  rather 
serious  objections.  The  first  is  that  they  are 
seen  from  the  country  on  all  sides  along  with 
the  Gothic  spire,  with  which  they  have  nothing 
in  common,  and  which  is,  unluckily  for  them, 
so  very  elegant  that  they  appear  heavy  in 
comparison.  To  this  objection  the  architects 
answered,  that  as  the  north  front  was  Roman- 
esque they  could  not  do  otherwise  than  finish 
it  with  towers  in  the  same  style ;  but  I  am 
not  quite  sure  that  this  is  the  case.  With  all 
the  deference  which  is  due  to  the  superior 
acquirements  of  professional  men  I  imagine 
that  there  would  have  been  sound  artistic 
reasons  for  another  course.  As  the  great 
spire  was  too  beautiful  to  be  destroyed,  I 
would  boldly  have  conformed  the  smaller 
towers  to  it,  built  their  upper  stories  in  Gothic, 
just  as  if  Cardinal  Rolin's  architect  had  dealt 
with  them,  and  finished  them  with  elegant 
Gothic  spires  —  younger  sisters  of  the  great 
one  —  inferior  in  stature,  but  not  in  grace. 


Autun.  183 

Such  a  course  would  have  given  the  cathedral 
a  delightful  harmony  in  all  distant  views,  and 
would  not  have  injured  the  north  front  when 
seen  near,  for  the  simple  reason  that,  with  the 
neighboring  houses  where  they  are,  it  is  never 
possible  to  see  the  porch  and  the  twin  towers 
at  the  same  time.  The  second  objection  to 
these  towers  is,  that  although  Romanesque  in 
style  they  are  not  in  the  flat  classical  Roman- 
esque of  the  church  itself,  but  in  a  less  refined, 
more  massive,  and  rounder  Romanesque,  ap- 
proaching, in  character  to  our  own  Norman. 
It  may  also  be  objected  that  the  similarity  of 
the  two  stories  is  monotonous,  and  that  one 
story  with  rather  higher  openings  would  have 
avoided  this  repetition.  I  imagine,  too,  that  it 
is  rather  a  fault  in  construction  to  put  an  arch 
very  near  to  another  opening  and  just  under 
it.  The  eye  expects  an  arch  to  carry  some- 
thing massive  and  weighty,  like  a  good  space 
of  blank  wall  or  else  a  roof.  I  know  that  this 
objection  would  apply  to  many  superposed 
arcades,  but  I  have  always  felt  it  to  be  of  some 
importance  so  far  as  the  satisfaction  of  the  eye 
is  concerned.1 

1  If  the  reader  has  ever  watched  the  building  of  a  common 
stone  bridge,  he  must  have  felt  how  much  more  satisfactory 


184  Autun. 

In  the  course  of  the  restoration,  it  was 
necessary  to  reconstruct  the  four  piers  under 
the  central  tower,  and  to  allow  of  this  being 
done,  the  tower  and  spire  were  carried  upon 
an  oak  scaffolding  of  enormous  strength, 
the  arches  being  kept  in  their  places  by 
gigantic  iron  screws.  This  was  one  of  the 
prettiest  pieces  of  engineering  in  modern 
architectural  operations. 

The  unity  of  the  cathedral  might  have 
gained  if  the  spire  had  fallen  and  been  replaced 
by  a  tower  in  the  style  of  the  twelfth  century, 
but  the  effect  of  the  spire  in  the  landscape 
could  with  difficulty  be  rivalled.  It  is  in  itself 
a  great  finial,  not  of  the  church  only,  but  of 
the  whole  city,  which  it  finishes  in  what  seems 
so  natural  and  inevitable  a  manner,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  realize  how  Roman  Augustodunum 
must  have  looked  without  it. 

and  substantial  the  bridge  seemed  when  a  few  courses  of 
masonry  had  been  added  above  the  arch  than  it  did  when  the 
arch  only  had  been  just  constructed.  There  is  a  substantial 
reason  for  this,  which  is  that  an  arch  is  stronger  and  more 
likely  to  keep  its  shape  when  it  has  a  good  weight  on  it. 


Autun.  185 

III. 

THE  LAPIDARY  MUSEUM  AND  THE   ROMAN  GATES. 

A  MONGST  the  many  hard  things  that  are 

**•  said  so  frequently  against  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  accusation  of  a  want  of  reverence 
for  the  past  is  one  of  the  most  common.  Cer- 
tainly it  may  be  admitted  that  the  authorities 
of  our  time  (especially  municipal  authorities 
in  old  cities)  have  destroyed  many  vestiges  to 
make  room  for  well-lighted,  modern  streets, 
and  anything  that  stands  in  the  way  of  what 
seems  a  desirable  straight  line  is  likely  to  be 
removed;  but  it  may  be  put  to  the  credit  of 
our  age  that  we  do  not  regard  this  destruction 
of  memorials  without  some  feeling  of  regretful 
interest,  and  some  desire  to  preserve  a  trace 
of  them  for  our  descendants.  In  this  we 
differ  from  the  men  of  all  preceding  ages.  If 
they  preserved  anything,  it  was  by  happy 
neglect ;  when  they  wanted  a  site,  already 
occupied  by  a  building,  they  simply  removed 
the  impediment  to  the  present  scheme  without 
taking  thought  for  the  inquirers  of  the  future. 
The  idea  of  founding  a  museum  was  an  idea 
so  foreign  to  the  minds  of  the  Middle  Ages 


1 86  Atitun. 

that  they  could  not  have  entertained  it.  The 
present  fashion  was  everything  with  them. 
So  far  from  having  any  tender  sentimental 
interest  in  the  past,  like  the  romantic  inter- 
est of  our  poets  and  novelists,  or  any  pictur- 
esque interest  like  that  felt  by  our  painters, 
they  had  not  even  the  scientific  interest  of 
the  archaeologist.  The  results  of  this  deadly 
indifference  are,  for  us,  infinitely  deplorable. 
The  Middle  Ages  were  exactly  the  time  for 
founding  archaeological  museums,  because  in 
those  ages  the  destruction  of  classic  monu- 
ments was  steadily  going  forward  ;  and  if  there 
had  only  been  museums  and  archaeologists 
just  then,  the  smaller  and  more  precious  parts 
of  ancient  work  might  have  been  preserved 
forever.  Augustodunum  was  a  Roman  city 
of  real  magnificence;  this  we  know  positively 
from  what  has  come  down  to  us,  from  the 
great  mosaics,  the  large  and  elaborately  sculp- 
tured marble  capitals,  and  the  important  scale 
of  the  places  of  public  amusement.  During 
the  centuries  when  Roman  Gaul  was  becom- 
ing mediaeval  Burgundy  and  France,  the 
Roman  Augustodunum  was  destroyed  gradu- 
ally, being  used  as  a  great  quarry  in  which 
hewn  stones  might  be  had  for  the  taking. 


A  it  tun.  187 

That  was  the  time  for  founding  a  lapidary 
museum,  instead  of  which  the  museum  was 
founded  in  1861,  when  the  Middle  Age  de- 
stroyers had  done  their  best  to  efface  every 
vestige  of  classic  times,  and  when  the  people 
of  the  Renaissance  and  of  modern  France  had 
in  their  turn  destroyed  the  mediaeval  city. 
After  these  two  great  destructions  —  as  nearly 
complete,  both  of  them,  as  leisurely  persever- 
ance could  make  them  —  the  modern  archae- 
ologists in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  come  and  collect  a  few  fragments,  buy 
a  little  plot  of  land,  and  set  their  mutilated  old 
stones  round  it  under  a  shed  ! 

All  honor  to  them  for  their  care  and  indus- 
try, but  such  archaeology  is  a  melancholy  busi- 
ness. "  Too  late !  too  late  ! !  "  is  the  inscription 
that  it  finds  on  every  fragment.  It  is  like 
picking  up  pieces  of  blistered  canvas  when 
a  picture-gallery  has  been  destroyed  by  fire 
—  sad  reminders  of  a  splendor  utterly  passed 
away,  and  which  a  little  care  and  prudence 
at  the  right  time  might  have  preserved  so 
easily! 

The  founders  of  this  modest  little  Lapidary 
Museum  were  very  happy  in  their  choice  of  a 
locality.  There  was  a  certain  chapel,  dedi- 


1 88  Autun. 

cated  to  St.  Nicholas,  and  built  in  the  twelfth 
century,  which  for  ages  had  been  disused  as  a 
place  of  worship,  and  employed  for  various 
common  uses  as  private  property.  Wonderful 
to  relate,  it  had  not  greatly  suffered  from  these 
changes ;  probably,  even,  it  had  suffered  less 
than  it  would  have  done  in  the  hands  of 
Mediaeval  and  Renaissance  ecclesiastics.  A 
farmer  may  fill  a  church  with  hay,  a  cooper 
may  fill  it  with  tubs  and  barrels,  without  alter- 
ing the  conception  of  the  architect,  but  an 
ignorant  priest  can  collect  money  for  supposed 
improvements,  and  do  more  harm  in  a  few 
months  than  mere  neglect  would  achieve  in 
as  many  centuries.  It  was  determined,  there- 
fore, to  purchase  this  chapel  of  St.  Nicholas 
and  a  bit  of  land  about  it  for  the  safe  keeping 
of  the  old  stones.  The  chapel  was  dealt  with 
tenderly ;  to  say  that  it  was  "  restored  "  would 
convey  a  false  impression.  It  was  simply  put 
into  a  condition  of  necessary  repair,  with  a 
plain  new  roof  and  floor.  It  possesses  a  very 
interesting  Romanesque  apse,  once  decorated 
in  fresco,  above  the  colonnade,  and  there  was 
also  a  border  of  fresco  decoration  about  the 
great  arch  before  it.  No  attempt  has  been 
made  to  brighten  or  complete  these  old 


Autun.  189 

frescos,  which  remain  exactly  as  when  found 
—  faded,  mysterious,  and  probably  far  more 
interesting  than  in  their  crude  freshness.  The 
apse  itself  is  in  a  state  of  quite  perfect  preser- 
vation. It  has  the  usual  round  arches  and 
slender  columns,  with  pretty  sculptured  cap- 
itals. If  the  student  looks  for  some  reminis- 
cence of  classic  architecture,  such  as  we  found 
in  the  Cathedral,  he  will  not  be  entirely  disap- 
pointed. To  the  right  and  the  left,  but  hidden 
from  the  nave  by  the  projection  of  the  larger 
pillars,  are  two  pilasters,  fluted  like  those  on 
the  piers  of  St.  Lazarus,  —  just  these  two,  as 
if  to  remind  us  that  we  are  in  a  Roman  city. 
Another  point  of  similarity  to  the  cathedral  is 
the  great  arch  itself,  which,  instead  of  being 
round,  is  pointed.  The  rest  of  the  building 
is  not  of  especial  interest  in  itself,  except 
the  Romanesque  doorway,  still  very  well 
preserved. 

Its  contents  compensate  for  the  bareness 
of  the  walls.  There  are  a  few  odd  shafts  of 
columns,  or  fragments  of  shafts,  of  various 
materials,  syenite  from  Egypt,  and  different 
marbles  and  granites  either  found  by  the 
Romans  in  Gaul  or  brought  by  them  from  a 
distance.  These  shafts  are  used  as  supports 


Autun. 

for  pieces  of  cornice  or  for  capitals  that  did 
not  belong  to  them,  and  so  the  architectural 
effect  is,  of  course,  very  incongruous ;  but  the 
visitor  soon  understands  that  he  is  in  a  col- 
lection of  odds  and  ends.  There  are  some 
very  fine  Roman  capitals  so  preserved  in 
the  chapel,  but  unluckily  all  mutilated;  still 
enough  remains  to  prove  the  past  magnifi- 
cence of  the  city,  as  it  has  never  been  custo- 
mary to  erect  great  marble  columns  with 
elaborate  carvings  in  a  village.  In  the  apse 
are  preserved  some  fragments  of  that  great 
tomb  of  St.  Lazarus  which  once  adorned  the 
Cathedral,  and  it  appears  from  these  (there 
are  more  of  them  in  a  heap  somewhere  up  in 
the  attics  of  the  Cathedral  itself)  that  the 
workers  in  marble  of  the  twelfth  century  were 
fully  acquainted  with  the  kind  of  engraving 
on  marble  and  filling  up  with  black  cement 
which  was  practised  by  the  Baron  de  Triqueti 
in  the  works  he  did  for  Queen  Victoria  at 
Windsor.  The  drawings  for  the  tomb  of 
St.  Lazarus  are  not  of  much  value  as  draw- 
ings, but  the  knowledge  of  the  engraving 
process  shown  by  the  artists  is  perfect,  and  the 
inserted  black  substance  is  as  sound  and  hard 
everywhere  as  the  marble.  There  are  also 


Azitun. 


191 


statues  of  Martha  and  Mary  from  the  Cathe- 
dral, of  the  twelfth  century,  showing  little  sci- 
ence but  a  good  deal  of  human  feeling.  The 
most  interesting  thing  here  to  antiquaries  and 
theologians  is  the  famous  t^&k  inscription, 
which  they  come  from  all  parts  to  see.  The 
reader  may  find  a  full  account  of  it  in  the  forty- 
second  session  of  the  "  Congres  Scientifique 
de  France,"  volume  I.,  page  49.  As  for  me, 
I  am  far  too  wary  to  entangle  myself  in  these 
deep  matters  even  to  the  extent  of  modestly 
copying  the  letters,  as  I  should  immediately 
receive  a  number  of  epistles  convicting  me  of 
ignorance.  All  I  venture  to  say  is  that  the 
stone  is  a  white-looking  piece  of  marble, 
broken  into  fragments,  which  are  pieced  to- 
gether again,  and  on  which  may  be  made  out 
a  Greek  acrostic,  of  which  the  lines  begin  with 
the  letters  i,  x,  0,  v,  and  something  which  is  sup- 
posed to  stand  for  a  Sigma,  making  the  mystic 
fish.  It  is  believed  to  belong  to  the  third  or 
fourth  century;  and  as  it  seems  to  favor  the 
idea  of  transubstantiation,  it  has,  of  course,  a 
peculiar  interest  for  theologians.1 

1  Here  is  an  accepted  French  translation,  for  which  I  am 
not  responsible: — • 

"  O  race  divine  de  ixdvs  celeste,  rec,ois  avec  un  coeur  plein 


192  Aiitun. 

In  the  middle  of  the  museum  is  a  large 
mosaic,  found  where  the  railway  station  now 
stands,  and  presented  to  the  museum  by  the 
company.  The  design  of  it  is  regular,  with 
common  Roman  decorative  forms,  but  without 
any  particular  artistic  merit  or  originality  of 
conception.  It  has  been  said  that  the  colors 
of  this  mosaic  are  dull,  but  the  simple  truth 
is  that  the  tesserae  want  repolishing.  A  kind 
of  varnish  is  sometimes  used  to  revive  mosaics 
for  museums,  when  they  are  not  trodden  upon, 
and  it  might  wisely  be  employed  in  this 
instance.  There  is  little  that  is  notable  in 
sculpture,  most  of  the  figures  being  rudely 
carved  images  of  Gallo-Roman  household 
divinities,  but  there  are  some  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful fragments  of  Renaissance  work  which  at 
one  time  decorated  the  chapel  of  Denis  Poillot 
in  an  old  church  near  the  present  cathedral, 

de  respect  la  vie  immortelle  parmi  les  mortels.  Rajeunis  ton 
ame,  6  mon  ami !  dans  les  eaux  divines,  par  les  flots  e'ternels 
de  la  sagesse  qui  donne  la  vraie  richesse.  Re9ois  I'aliment 
ddlicieux  du  Sauveur  des  saints  :  Prends,  mange  et  bois,  tu 
tiens  ixdvs  dans  tes  mains. 

"  '\x6vs  accorde-moi  cette  grace,  je  la  de'sire  ardemment, 
maitre  et  sauveur ;  que  ma  mere  repose  en  paix,  je  t'en  con- 
jure, lumiere  des  morts.  Aschandeus,  mon  pere,  toi  que  je 
che'ris,  avec  ma  tendre  mere  et  tous  mes  parents  dans  la  paix 
d'  'idvs  souviens-toi  de  ton  Pectorius." 


Autun.  193 

now  pulled  down.  The  design  of  these  is  of 
the  most  masterly  elegance  and  unsparing 
elaboration.  So  fine  is  the  work  that  if  it 
were  in  some  close-grained  wood  it  might 
serve  for  delicate  furniture,  whilst  the  designs 
are  so  complex  that  merely  to  copy  them  in 
drawing  would  require  very  long  and  pains- 
taking labor;  indeed,  only  the  photograph 
could  do  them  perfect  justice.  After  the  rude 
Romanesque  work,  and  even  the  comparatively 
rude  and  stiff  designs  of  the  Gothic  ages,  it 
is  like  a  new  revelation  of  human  skill  and 
knowledge  to  come  upon  sculpture  so  accom- 
plished as  this,  and  to  think  that  the  lovely 
Renaissance  chapel,  of  which  these  fragments 
were  only  a  part,  was  carelessly  sacrificed 
and  the  stones  of  it  cast  aside  as  worthless 
—  stones  rich  with  the  unsparing  toil  of  a 
master ! 

There  is  a  fine  antique  sarcophagus  in 
white  marble,  with  many  figures,  representing 
the  hunting  of  the  boar  of  Calydon,  but  this 
was  not  .found  in  Augustodunum.  It  came 
originally  from  Aries,  and  thence  to  Lyons, 
and  by  the  gift  of  Bishop  Devoncoux,  of 
Evreux,  it  passed  into  the  Lapidary  Museum 
at  Autun.  There  is  another  sarcophagus  of 

'3 


194  Autun. 

antique  origin,  with  its  original  inscription 
defaced  and  Gothic  ornaments  added.  This 
was  used,  according  to  tradition,  for  the  re- 
mains of  a  saint  of  the  seventh  century  called 
St.  Francovee  in  French  accounts,  who  dwelt 
in  solitude  in  the  Morvan.  Since  his  bones 
became  dust  the  sarcophagus  was  the  property 
of  a  nobleman,  Baron  Pigenat,  who  desired  to 
be  buried  in  it ;  but  when  he  was  dead  his 
friends  discovered  a  difficulty  which  had  never 
been  thought  of,  —  they  found  that  he  was  too 
tall  for  his  sarcophagus,  and  from  an  intelligi- 
ble feeling  they  did  not  like  to  amputate  his 
legs,  so  they  buried  him  in  a  common  coffin 
and  left  the  sarcophagus  for  many  years  in  the 
churchyard  at  Tavernay,  the  village  near  his 
residence.  Afterwards  his  successor  gave  it 
to  the  Lapidary  Museum,  which  owes  the 
treasure  entirely  to  the  stature  of  the  first 
baron. 

Round  the  little  plot  of  ground,  which  is 
now  the  garden  of  the  Lapidary  Museum, 
there  is  a  shed  on  pillars  to  shelter  the  re- 
mains, for  which  there  is  not  room  enough  in 
the  chapel.  Here  are  a  number  of  Roman 
tombstones  of  the  third  or  fourth  century  after 
Christ,  generally  very  rude  in  their  carving, 


Aiitun.  195 

yet  intelligibly  representing  the  occupation 
pursued  by  the  dead  man  during  his  lifetime. 
More  interesting  than  these  are  the  remains 
of  a  sarcophagus  in  gray  marble,  which  once 
held  the  body  of  the  great  and  powerful 
Queen  Brunehaut,  one  of  the  most  energetic 
women  of  the  Middle  Ages :  accused  by 
Clotaire  II.  of  the  death  of  ten  kings,  and 
condemned  by  him  to  be  dragged  to  death  by 
horses ;  a  subject  which,  dreadful  as  it  is,  has 
more  than  once  been  effectively  represented 
in  painting,  when  the  horses  have  come  to  a 
stop  at  last  in  some  melancholy  valley,  with 
the  pale  corpse  of  the  dead  queen  lying  mo- 
tionless behind  them.  Her  sepulchre  was  at 
Autun,  at  the  Abbey  of  St.  Martin,  not  far 
from  where  the  Lapidary  Museum  now  stands, 
so  that  the  only  memorial  of  her  now  remain- 
ing is  very  nearly  in  its  right  place.  * 

There  is  little  else  of  note  in  the  museum 
except  some  Roman  capitals  in  white  marble 
and  other  materials,  like  those  preserved  in 
the  chapel.  One  great  use,  however,  of  such 
a  museum  has  been  admirably  shown  by  the 
housing  of  part  of  Jean  Goujon's  famous 
Fountain  of  the  Pelican.  This  fountain  was 
erected  near  the  Cathedral  in  Renaissance 


196  Autun. 

times ;  but,  although  the  date  of  it  is  compar- 
atively recent,  the  stone  was  too  tender  and 
friable,  and,  to  prevent  it  from  falling,  the 
upper  part  of  it  was  removed  and  lodged  in 
the  museum.  It  is  in  an  advanced  stage  of 
decay,  many  of  the  stones  having  retained 
little  of  their  original  form,  but  others  are 
still  sharp  enough  here  and  there  for  the  de- 
sign to  be  easily  made  out ;  and  a  very  beauti- 
ful design  it  is.  It  is  proposed  to  make  a  new 
copy,  as  accurate  as  possible,  of  the  whole, 
and  carry  all  that  remains  of  the  original  to 
the  Lapidary  Museum,  a  much  more  reverent 
and  rational  mode  of  proceeding  than  any  at- 
tempt at  restoration  of  Jean  Goujon's  work. 
To  my  feeling  it  is  one  of  the  most  perfect 
little  structures  of  its  kind  to  be  met  with  any- 
where ;  the  proportions  are  so  harmonious 
and  the  lines  of  the  columns,  cornices,  and 
arches  so  ingeniously  contrived  to  produce  a 
great  effect  of  variety.  The  pelican  on  the 
summit  is  piercing  her  breast  for  her  young. 
In  drawings  of  the  fountain  she  is  often  repre- 
sented as  a  natural  sort  of  pelican,  but  in  the 
original  stonework  she  is  strictly  convention- 
alized, so  as  to  go  well  with  the  architectural 
idea.  Again,  in  the  drawings  I  find  the  vases 


Autun. 


197 


made  heavier  than  Jean  Goujon  made  them ; 
and  indeed  it  is  never  safe  to  trust  to  anything 
but  photographs  for  representations  of  any- 
thing really  elegant  in  architecture,  as  the 
elegance  of  it  depends  upon  nicely  observed 
proportions,  which  few  draughtsmen  are  care- 
ful to  notice. 

Of  the  remaining  Roman  gates,  that  which 
is  commonly  called  la  Porte  cCArroux  (as 
being  near  the  river)  is  the  more  beautiful. 
It  is  the  gate  leading  to  Paris,  and  stands  on 
the  steep  slope  of  land  going  down  to  the 
bridge.  Its  flat  pilasters,  fluted  and  crowned 
with  carved  capitals,  are  extremely  elegant, 
and  very  probably  taught  a  lesson  in  delicacy 
to  the  architects  of  the  Romanesque  cathedral. 
There  is  also  a  very  rich  cornice,  elaborately 
carved,  between  the  large  archways  and  the 
little  arcade  above  them.  Generally  what 
strikes  the  visitor  in  this  gate  is  the  fine  pres- 
ervation of  the  masonry,  the  sharpness  of  the 
stones,  showing  that  if  it  had  been  left  un- 
touched from  the  time  of  the  Romans  it  would 
still  have  been  in  good  condition.  Within 
the  arches  there  are  large  grooves  for  the 
doors,  which  were  evidently  raised  and  low- 
ered by  winches  and  chains.  In  the  other 


198  Aiitun. 

gateway  the  Porte  St.  Andre,  leading  to 
Besan9on,  this  system  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  followed.  From  certain  holes  in  the 
walls,  on  each  side,  it  is  evident  that  the  door 
was  barred  by  strong  beams  placed  across  it. 
These  were  first  inserted  into  holes  on  the 
right,  and  then  the  other  ends  of  them  were 
dropped  into  grooves  on  the  left,  which  are 
still  visible.  These  Roman  gates  were  origi- 
nally flanked  by  towers  for  their  defence,  and 
the  height  of  the  chemin  de  ronde,  or  passage 
for  troops  above  the  archways,  gives  the  exact 
height  of  the  Roman  wall,  which  appears  to 
have  been  thirteen  metres  to  the  top  of  the 
battlements.  It  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that 
the  Porte  des  marbres,  which  was  far  more 
splendid  than  the  two  now  remaining,  being 
richly  adorned  with  sculpture,  should  have 
been  destroyed  during  the  Middle  Ages ;  but 
in  those  times  there  was  no  law  in  France 
for  the  preservation  of  historical  monuments. 


Autun. 


199 


IV. 

HOUSES. 

HPHE  Roman  city  no  doubt  greatly  sur- 
passed the  mediaeval  in  the  magnifi- 
cence of  its  public  buildings,  except  that  the 
temples,  however  rich  in  marble  capitals  and 
mosaic  pavements,  could  never  produce  so 
fine  a  distant  effect  as  the  towers  of  the 
churches ;  but,  notwithstanding  the  luxury  of 
wealthy  Gallo-Romans  and  the  perfection  of 
their  habitations  according  to  their  own  ideas 
of  orderly  and  comfortable  arrangement,  I  am 
fully  convinced  that  the  mediaeval  city  must 
have  been  incomparably  more  interesting  than 
its  predecessor  if  considered  as  a  collection 
of  dwelling-places.  The  tiresome  regularity  of 
the  Roman  streets  is  in  itself  quite  enough  to 
prove  that  the  houses  must  have  been  com- 
paratively uninteresting.  A  learned  antiquary, 
M.  Roidot-Deleage,  seized  upon  every  oppor- 
tunity for  studying  the  foundations  of  Augus- 
todunum  which  presented  itself  during  a  space 
of  forty  years,  and  the  result  of  his  labors  was 
a  map  in  which  every  block  of  Roman  houses 
is  marked  in  its  exact  locality,  and  every 


2oo  Autun. 

Roman  street  is  drawn  from  one  wall  of  the 
city  to  its  opposite.1  So  completely  had  M. 
Roidot-Deleage  mastered  his  problem  that 
he  became  able  to  predict  the  exact  spots 
in  which  the  corner-stones  of  Roman  street- 
blocks  would  be  found  when  excavations  took 
place,  and  his  predictions  were  always  verified. 
All  the  local  antiquaries  accept  his  map  as 
being  perfectly  trustworthy,  and  if  it  is  so  the 
inference  is  that  the  Roman  habitations  were 
arranged  with  the  most  mechanical  regularity 
in  square  blocks  or  "  islets "  of  building,  as 
the  French  call  them,  all  exactly  alike  in  their 
general  ground-plan,  and  measuring  about  a 
hundred  English  yards  on  each  side,  the  ordi- 
nary streets  being  about  ten  metres  wide  and 
the  two  principal  ones  about  sixteen,  half 
of  which  was  occupied  by  causeways.  The 
length  of  the  principal  street,  which  crossed 
the  city  from  north  to  south,  from  the  Paris 
gate  to  the  gate  leading  to  Rome,  was  1,570 
metres,  and,  like  all  the  others,  it  was  per- 

1  This  map,  which  is  one  of  the  most  thorough  pieces  of 
archaeological  work  ever  executed,  received  a  medal  from  the 
Socie'te  Franchise  de  Numismatique  et  d'Archdologie  in  the 
year  1868  as  the  best  existing  map  of  a  Gallo-Roman  city.  It 
was  published  in  the  "  Me*moires  de  la  Socie'te'  £duenne,"  New 
Series.  Vol.  I.  1872. 


Autun.  20 1 

fectly  straight.  Here  we  have  just  the  plan 
of  some  new  American  town,  the  best  of  all 
plans  for  convenience  of  access  to  every  house, 
and  also  for  ventilation,  but  the  worst  for 
architectural  and  picturesque  effect.  It  is 
believed  that  the  houses,  except  a  few  resi- 
dences of  great  personages,  were  always  low 
and  small.  The  straight  lines  of  the  streets 
are  in  themselves  evidence  that  the  straight 
line  must  have  predominated  in  the  fronts. 
Streets  without  curves,  houses  without  pro- 
jections, and  probably  with  low  roofs  and  a 
poor  skyline,  like  modern  English  or  Ameri- 
can building  of  the  most  utilitarian  character; 
these,  as  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  appear  to 
have  been  the  most  prevalent  characteristics 
of  Augustodunum. 

Mediaeval  Autun  was  a  very  different  place. 
Its  streets  curved  in  every  direction,  and  the 
same  street  varied  in  its  width.  So  far  from 
keeping  to  any  rigorous  alignement,  the  houses 
sometimes  projected  in  advance  of  the  line  and 
sometimes  withdrew,  as  it  were,  into  recesses. 
There  is  evidence  that  the  mediaeval  streets 
widened  and  narrowed  like  running  streams, 
and  that  sometimes  a  house  projected  into 
the  street  as  a  rock  does  in  water,  an  incon- 


2O2  Autun. 

venience  that  the  mediaeval  people  do  not 
seem  to  have  minded.  The  idea  of  the  street 
as  the  Romans  had  it,  and  as  we  moderns 
have  it  again,  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred 
to  the  mediaeval  people  at  all ;  they  do  not 
appear  to  have  cared  for  the  street  in  itself, 
but  only  for  the  houses,  and  the  street  was 
nothing  but  a  means  of  communication  from 
one  house  to  another.  Neither  was  there  any 
sort  of  conformity  in  the  house-building ;  there 
were  no  Improvement  Acts,  there  was  no 
Baron  Haussmann  to  decree  that  the  windows 
should  be  all  alike  on  the  same  story  for  a 
hundred  houses,  as  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. 
Every  man  built  his  dwelling  according  to 
the  conditions  determined  by  his  taste  and 
his  means,  often  adorning  it  with  varied  and 
fanciful  ornament,  and  always  showing  art  in 
it  of  some  kind,  were  it  only  in  the  mouldings 
of  a  beam  or  the  careful  finish  of  wood  or 
stone  work  about  a  window.  The  remnants 
of  the  mediaeval  city  are  not  nearly  as  numer- 
ous at  the  present  day  as  they  were  a  hundred 
years  ago,  but  there  are  still  enough  of  them 
to  give  a  good  idea  of  what  it  must  have 
been,  —  a  quaint  place  with  many  comfortable 
houses  and  a  few  splendid  ones. 


Autun.  203 

A  sketcher  has  many  opportunities  which 
do  not  occur  to  others.  People  are  interested 
in  what  he  does,  and  their  interest  soon  passes 
into  kindness.  I  have  almost  invariably  found 
that  if  I  sketched  an  old  house  I  could  exam- 
ine every  nook  and  corner  of  it,  generally  by 
the  spontaneous  invitation  of  the  inhabitant. 
In  this  way  a  sketcher  who  cares  for  more 
than  the  outside  appearance  of  his  subject  may 
learn  many  curious  details  about  the  internal 
arrangements  of  old  dwellings,  and  conse- 
quently about  the  domestic  life  of  the  past. 
One  characteristic  seems  to  have  been  invari- 
able. A  small  modern  house  is  a  place  with 
a  number  of  tiny  rooms  in  it,  but  a  small 
mediaeval  house  had  always  at  least  one  rela- 
tively very  large  room,  and  even  the  great  me- 
diaeval houses  had  comparatively  few  rooms, 
but  those  were  of  handsome  size.  The  reason 
is  that  the  mediaeval  people  cared  much  less 
for  privacy  than  we  do,  and  lived  more  to- 
gether, after  the  manner  of  our  own  lower 
classes.  In  such  a  house  as  that  in  the  Rue 
Cocand,  at  Autun,  now  inhabited  by  M.  Gue- 
nard,  the  locksmith,  the  large  room  on  the 
ground  floor,  which  is  now  his  workshop,  was 
formerly  the  general  family  living-room,  and 


204 


the  large  room  above  it  the  general  bed- 
chamber. It  would  have  a  bed  in  each  corner, 
made  into  a  sort  of  tent  with  great  curtains, 
for  the  degree  of  privacy  which  satisfied  the 
mediaeval  mind.  A  few  little  places  for  kitchen 
and  servants  completed  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments. Even  in  the  smaller  country  chateaux 
the  four-bed  system  prevailed. 

Our  modern  preference  for  separation  in 
sleeping  apartments,  even  at  the  cost  of  mak- 
ing them  very  small,  is  certainly  a  great  ad- 
vance in  civilization,  but  it  is  not  an  unmixed 
advantage.  The  cramped  and  confined  French 
townsman  of  limited  means  hardly  ever  knows 
what  it  is  to  be  in  a  large  room,  but  his  medi- 
aeval forefathers  enjoyed  that  luxury  every  day. 
A  French  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance,  who 
is  a  great  archaeologist  and  has  studied  past 
ages  till  his  tastes  and  feelings  have  grown 
into  sympathy  with  those  of  his  remote  fore- 
fathers, built  for  himself  a  shooting-lodge 
entirely  according  to  his  own  fancy.  "  The 
house  itself  will  not  be  large,"  he  said,  "  but  I 
am  determined  to  have  one  large  room  in  it." 
That  was  quite  a  mediaeval  idea,  and  the  way 
he  carried  it  out  was  this:  He  built  his  one 
room  lofty  and  vast,  with  a  stone  chimney- 


Autun,  205 

piece  huge  enough  to  carry  life-size  Gothic 
statues  for  ornaments,  and  round  this  room 
he  built  little  cells  for  sleeping,  in  deference 
to  modern  notions.  In  practical  use  the  great 
room  was  a  continual  satisfaction  to  him.  In 
wet  weather  the  party  could  meet  in  it  with- 
out a  sense  of  confinement,  in  hot  weather  it 
was  comparatively  cool  and  airy.  This  luxury 
of  space  the  mediaeval  people  enjoyed  in  one 
room  at  least,  but  their  houses  were  ill  con- 
trived in  other  respects.  It  is  astonishing 
how  they  wasted  room  when  they  had  little 
to  spare,  and  how  completely  they  neglected 
the  important  rule  that  every  chamber  should 
be  accessible  without  passing  through  another. 
I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  a  mediaeval  house 
in  existence  at  all  comparable  to  the  best 
modern  ones  for  ingenuity  of  internal  arrange- 
ment. Even  the  stone  corkscrew  staircases, 
so  common  as  to  be  almost  universal  in  medi- 
aeval houses,  are  a  most  inconvenient  kind  of 
staircase  in  use.  As  every  step  narrows  till  it 
comes  to  nothing  at  the  pillar,  it  is  of  use 
only  near  the  wall,  and  two  people  cannot 
conveniently  meet  upon  it.  For  carrying 
large  objects,  such  as  pieces  of  furniture,  a 
corkscrew  stair  is  the  worst  of  all.  From  the 


206  A  ttt  tin. 

absence  of  proper  landings  there  is  an  awk- 
wardness at  every  door  on  the  successive 
stones.  The  only  real  advantages  of  these 
stairs  are  that  they  occupy  a  minimum  of 
space  on  the  ground  plan,  and  that  they  pro- 
duce a  picturesque  external  effect  when  they 
are  built  out  in  little  towers  with  pepper-box 
roofs.  Sometimes  the  stair-turret  is  half  lost 
in  the  main  building,  sometimes  it  is  entirely 
absorbed  and  only  the  top  of  it  visible.  Some- 
thing, however,  is  generally  made  of  it  in  any 
case.  In  the  house  in  the  Rue  Cocand,  men- 
tioned above,  the  stair-turret  is  behind,  and 
only  the  top  of  it  is  seen ;  but  it  shows 
well  in  the  back  yard,  where  it  gives  a  good 
finish  to  a  picturesque  accumulation  of  build- 
ings on  a  small  scale.  In  this  house,  as  in 
others  of  the  same  class,  there  is  a  predomi- 
nant architectural  feeling  (as  distinguished 
from  the  business  spirit  of  a  mere  builder), 
which  manifests  itself  in  matters  of  detail. 
There  is  hardly  a  bit  of  stone  or  wood  in  the 
house,  dating  from  its  origin,  that  is  not 
treated  with  some  intention  of  care  and 
taste. 

In  the  region  about  the  Cathedral  there  are 
many  good  specimens  of  the  old  town-house 


207 


which  would  deserve  to  be  illustrated.  One 
of  them,  belonging  to  the  presiding  judge,  is 
like  two  distinct  buildings.  It  has  a  genuine 
mediaeval  front  to  a  court  near  one  street, 
and  an  interesting  Renaissance  front  towards 
another.  The  house  occupied  by  M.  Froment, 
the  well  known  artist,  is  entirely  mediaeval. 
Some  of  the  houses  built  against  the  town 
wall  have  turned  the  old  military  towers  to 
account  by  making  rooms  in  them.  I  know 
a  lady  who  has  a  pretty  little  boudoir  in  one  of 
these  round  towers,  and  amongst  the  arrange- 
ments of  feminine  taste  and  comfort  it  is  easy 
to  forget  the  original  intention  of  the  building 
till  one  is  reminded  of  it  by  the  thickness  of 
the  wall  as  revealed  by  the  depth  of  the  win- 
dow embrasure.  The  reader  must  not  suppose 
that  the  Gothic  houses  about  the  Cathedral 
are  rich  in  any  striking  architectural  adorn- 
ment. They  are  generally  plain  and  substan- 
tial dwellings,  with  a  few  mouldings  about 
window  and  doorway,  and  perhaps  an  isolated 
bit  of  sculpture  here  and  there.  With  a  single 
exception,  they  are  not  on  a  large  scale. 

The  exception  is  the  Hotel  de  Beauchamp, 
which  was  purchased  a  few  years  ago  by  an 
important  archaeological  society  —  the  Societe 


208  Autun. 

Eduenne —  and  classed  as  an  historical  monu- 
ment, which  insures  its  future  preservation. 
It  is  a  part,  and  only  a  comparatively  small 
and  unimportant  part,  of  what  was  at  one  time 
an  extensive  Gothic  palace.  It  belonged  to 
Nicholas  Rolin,  Chancellor  of  Burgundy,  who 
died  in  it  in  the  year  1461.  The  main  char- 
acteristics of  it  are  a  very  highly  pitched  roof, 
lofty  rooms,  and  one  or  two  good  chimney- 
pieces.  It  was  occupied  by  work-people  before 
the  Societe  Eduenne  bought  it,  and  since  the 
change  of  ownership  it  has  been  cleaned  and 
carefully  repaired,  but  not  restored  in  any 
destructive  sense.  The  greatest  objection  to 
what  has  been  done  is  the  substitution  of  a 
new  roof  of  blue  slate  for  the  old  common  red 
tiles,  which  gave  a  pleasant  warm  contrast  to 
the  gray  stone  of  the  building.  Blue  slate 
is  now  extensively  used  in  the  old  French 
provincial  towns,  which  in  the  days  before 
railways  were  happily  preserved  from  it  by 
their  distance  from  slate  quarries.  It  is  at 
once  the  neatest,  the  coldest,  and  the  hardest- 
looking  of  all  materials  for  roofs.  The  bour- 
geois mind  delights  in  its  neatness,  but  it 
chills  the  heart  of  an  artist. 

The  roof  of  the  Hotel  de  Beauchamp  is  so 


<Autun. 


209 


steep  and  high  that  it  contains  rooms  below 
the  attics,  being,  in  fact,  itself  divided  into 
two  stories,  and  the  lower  one  is  lighted  by 
the  dormer  windows  that  are  a  conspicuous 
feature  in  the  building.  The  Societe  Edu- 
enne  have  taken  the  principal  room  for  their 
meetings,  and  have  arranged  it  with  taste; 
the  other  large  rooms  are  to  be  embellished 
gradually  as  the  funds  of  the  society  permit, 
and  filled  with  antiquities  belonging  to  the 
society.  Few  associations  of  that  kind  have 
been  so  appropriately  housed,  and  the  luck  in 
this  instance  is  the  more  remarkable  that 
what  remained  of  the  Hotel  de  Beauchamp 
appeared  to  be  doomed  by  the  modern  notion 
of  alignement.  It  projects  several  feet  into 
the  street  whose  inhabitants  eagerly  looked 
forward  to  the  day  when  the  old  building 
would  be  removed  by  the  local  ediles.  That 
possibility  ceased  with  its  elevation  to  the 
rank  of  an  historical  monument.  It  is  now 
tabooed,  like  the  Roman  gates  and  the  Tem- 
ple of  Janus. 

The  bishop's  palace  includes  some  of  the 
oldest  mediaeval  buildings  in  the  city,  espe- 
cially the  tower  of  St.  Leger  (said  to  be  eight 
hundred  years  old),  but  the  mass  of  the  build- 

14 


2io  Aiitun. 

ing  has  been  altered  at  the  Renaissance. 
There  are  some  noble  rooms  in  it,  very  lofty 
and  well  lighted,  and  there  is  a  fine  staircase, 
but,  like  most  residences  of  the  kind,  its  princi- 
pal merits  are  those  of  space  and  convenience. 
The  garden  is  picturesque  in  the  extreme, 
with  great  varieties  of  level,  some  very  fine 
old  trees,  and  a  noble  view  of  the  near  wooded 
hills  to  the  south.  The  preservation  of  St. 
Leger's  tower  gives  the  bishop's  palace  great 
dignity.  Notwithstanding  their  generally  de- 
structive tendency,  I  have  noticed  that  the 
French  often  hesitate  before  destroying  a 
tower.  There  is  an  old  one  in  the  northern 
mediaeval  wall  of  Autun,  near  the  Avenue  de 
la  Gare,  which  seemed  doomed  to  destruction 
as  the  ground  was  bought  for  building  shops. 
However,  the  purchaser  preserved  it,  and 
joined  it  to  his  new  shop,  only  raising  it  a 
little  to  the  level  of  the  new  building  and 
roofing  it  afresh,  of  course  with  the  now 
inevitable  slate. 

I  have  said  in  another  place  that  two  parts 
of  the  mediaeval  city  were  especially  fortified, 
—  the  citadel,  in  which  stands  the  Cathedral, 
and  Marchaux,  in  the  northeast  corner,  which 
is  the  opposite  corner  diagonally.  The  march 


Autun.  211 

of  modern  progress  seems  rather  to  have 
respected  these  old  fortifications,  for  it  so 
happens  that  the  old  houses  which  still  re- 
main are  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  citadel 
and  in  Marchaux.  There  is  one  at  the  foot 
of  the  clock-tower  in  Marchaux,  the  woodwork 
(of  the  sixteenth  century)  is  well  finished,  and 
there  is  some  carving  in  the  interior;  but 
tourists  are  respectfully  informed  that  it  would 
be  useless  for  them  to  ask  to  see  it,  as  the 
tenant  has  had  it  plastered  up  to  escape  the 
annoyance  of  untimely  callers,  being  weary 
of  the  visits  of  the  curious.  The  clock-tower 
has  a  bartizan  reaching  far  down  the  east  side 
of  it,  supported  on  the  usual  diminishing  con- 
centric mouldings,  but  under  them  in  this 
instance  there  is  the  carved  figure  of  a  man. 
He  is  there  still,  but  hidden,  like  the  wood- 
carvings  in  the  neighboring  house,  as  a  wall 
has  been  built  against  the  tower  just  high 
enough  to  bury  him.  In  the  courtyard  is  a 
Gothic  well,  which  in  old  times  was  adorned 
with  a  stone  serving  the  office  of  a  crane  and 
projecting  from  the  house  wall.  This  is  long 
since  broken,  but  the  remnant  shows  that  it 
was  richly  and  skilfully  carved.  The  tower 
and  well  belonged,  in  fact,  to  one  of  the  great 


212  Autun. 

houses.  As  the  citadel  had  its  Hotel  de  Beau- 
champ,  so  Marchaux  had  its  Hotel  de  Cluny. 

In  the  street  near  it,  the  Petite  Rue  Mar- 
chaux, are  several  old  houses  in  fair  preserva- 
tion. Close  by,  in  the  Grande  Rue  Marchaux, 
are  other  old  houses  worth  attention,  and  after 
that  the  curious  explorer  finds  a  few  others  in 
odd  places  here  and  there,  but  not  in  clusters 
as  about  the  Cathedral. 

I  only  remember  a  single  remaining  example 
of  a  bartizan  in  an  ordinary  house.  It  is  at 
the  upper  end  of  the  Grande  Rue  Chauchien, 
and  is  small,  plain,  heavy,  and  low.  Bartizans 
add  greatly  to  the  effect  of  towers,  and  give  a 
pretty  architectural  finish  to  corners  even  in 
streets,  but  they  should  be  of  some  height  and 
elegance.  In  the  case  mentioned,  the  bartizan 
is  overwhelmed  by  a  high  roof  which  rises  far 
above  it,  and  is  itself  so  near  to  the  ground 
that  it  seems  almost  as  if  it  might  incon- 
venience the  foot  passengers. 

There  would  be  much  more  to  say  about 
houses  at  Autun  if  we  studied  the  changes  in 
domestic  architecture  down  to  modern  days. 
There  are  especially  one  or  two  curious  ex- 
amples of  Renaissance  work  in  which  the 
desire  to  have  a  complete  composition  of  a 


Azitun.  213 

central  corps  de  bailment  with  wings,  and  all 
in  a  very  small  space,  has  led  the  architect  to 
erect  wings  so  very  narrow  that  it  must  be 
impossible  to  use  them  for  anything  but 
closets.  Much  building  has  been  done  dur- 
ing recent  years,  but  it  has  rarely  any  preten- 
sion to  architectural  elegance ;  and  it  seems 
not  at  all  improbable  that  in  the  course  of 
the  twentieth  or  the  twenty-first  century  Autun 
may  once  more  cover  the  whole  extent  of 
Augustodunum,  and  with  streets  rivalling  the 
straightness  of  the  Roman  ways.  All  that  can 
be  said  of  the  recently  built  houses  is  that 
they  excel  their  predecessors  in  light,  healthi- 
ness, and  convenience.  These  are  valuable 
qualities,  but  when  the  last  remnant  of  past 
times  has  disappeared  forever  the  artists  and 
archaeologists  of  the  future  will  hear  the  name 
of  Autun  with  regret;  and  if  they  visit  the 
site  once  covered  by  a  great  Gallo-Roman 
city,  and  afterwards  by  a  most  picturesque, 
though  smaller,  mediaeval  one,  they  will  hardly 
say,  as  Henri  Martin,  the  historian,  said  lately, 
that  with  the  single  exception  of  Paris,  Autun 
is  even  yet,  by  its  site  and  character,  "  la  plus 
belle  ville  de  France." 


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